Electoral Panorama / Panorama Electoral

French President Jacques Chirac announced today he will not be seeking a third term in next month's election, but he did not endorse the leader of his conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who was chosen last January as the ruling party's presidential candidate. Nonetheless, Chirac made a final appeal to French voters to reject extremism, racism and anti-semitism - a thinly veiled reference to presidential hopeful Jean-Marie Le Pen of the far-right National Front (FN).

Meanwhile, the latest opinion polls indicate France's presidential race is turning into a very close three-way race, with François Bayrou - who leads the centrist Union for French Democracy (UDF) - suddenly emerging as a credible challenger to both Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal of the Socialist Party, while Le Pen is shown trailing well behind the three leading candidates.

At this juncture, it's not even clear if Le Pen will make it to the ballot. French presidential hopefuls are required to present 500 signatures from elected officials by March 16 in order to become candidates, but at the beginning of this month Le Pen was still a hundred short, according to BBC News - which also reports the mayor of Noron-la-Poterie, a small village in northern France, has announced he is putting his endorsement up for auction for candidates in the upcoming presidential vote.

Presidential Elections in France has an overview of the country's electoral system, and nationwide presidential election results since 1965.