A new opinion poll in France has suggested the Socialist Candidate Francois Hollande could win a second round contest against President Nicolas Sarkozy by a comfortable margin on 5 May.
The election campaign has entered the final phase before the first round, in which 10 candidates take part on Sunday.
Francois Hollande tonight greeted ecstatic crowds in Bordeaux on his last major rally before the first round vote.
Scensing victory and now even winning the support of ministers who once served under his rival Nicolas Sarkozy, the socialist candidate told supporters that change was in their hands.
Polls suggest that in the second round run off against the President he'd win by up to 16 points.
A year ago he seemed an unlikely choice, ridiculed as having the air of a provincial bank manager. Now after a crash diet and a new sharper image he promises to lead the left out of the wilderness after a 17 year wait.
Mr Hollande has never held ministerial office and is more immersed in regional and backroom politics - he has grabbed headlines with a proposed 75% tax on millionaires, and he wants to create 60,000 new teaching jobs.
He has also promised to renegotiate the Fiscal Compact treaty, but many observers say this is pure electioneering.
Francois Hollande has hammered the policies of austerity, but he has stopped short of a radically different approach to public spending, except to say he would balance the budget in 2017, one year after President Sarkozy has said he would.
President Sarkozy will hold a final rally in the Mediterranean city of Nice tomorrow.
Mr Sarkozy says he wants the ECB to pursue more growth policies and to loosen exchange rate policy to boost exports.
The last time an incumbent president lost a French election was in 1981 when Valery Giscard d'Estaing lost to Francois Mitterand.
With the eurozone debt crisis once again grabbing global headlines, the leading candidates have limited room to manoeuvre on economic policy, and with financial markets watching closely, the outcome may have an impact on French borrowing costs.
But on the far left and right Jean-Luc Melenchon and Marine le Pen respectively are attempting to capitalise on anger over unemployment and austerity, not to mention fears on the far right about immigration.
