The French say you can vote with your heart in the first round. Only in the second , do you need to vote with your mind.

With the French electorate obviously bored with this year’s election, the 14 so-called "little" candidates who may not be expected to reach the second round, may gain 60 per cent of the vote in the first.

Among these outsiders are Arlette Laguiller, the Trotsky Workers Struggle candidate, in fashion for the first time after participating in presidential elections since 1974.

Another is Jean Saint Josse, leader of the Chasseurs and Pecheurs, Nature et Tradition, CPNT, movement -the nature party which has developed from a country sports preservation initiative to a party representing French villagers fed up with city politicians in sleek suits and oblivious to the needs of rural folk.

Up on the election front are also ageing Jean-Marie Le Pen of the right-wing National Front and Jean-Pierre Chevenement, France First’s candidate, who has resigned from former Socialist governments three times.

A dog called Sausage

A record number of 16 candidates - 12 men and four women – managed to gather the 500 signatures needed to run in the first round of voting on 21 April.

Some of the wackiest among the political no-names who failed the hurdle were a striptease artist and a dog called Saucisse (Sausage), who took four per cent in a local election in Marseille last year.

Of the outsiders up for the race, the three hoping to gain 10 per cent of the votes each are Chevenement, Le Pen and Laguiller.

According to recent opinion polls, the three may together pick up one third of the votes.

Despite an expected elimination in the first round, the outsiders could still tip the final outcome by urging their followers to back one or the other of the two big names.

Annoyed

The crowded field comprising 16 candidates this year is a clear sign of annoyance with the leadership of those who have run France in "cohabitation" for the past five years.

Jacques Chirac, 69, is the incumbent president, a former premier minister, mayor of Paris and conservative candidate for the election. Analysts have warned that a row of sleaze allegations concerning the president could take their toll.

Lionel Jospin, 64, is France’s current socialist prime minister. He narrowly lost to Chirac in the 1995 presidential elections.

Bored

Polls show that many voters are simply bored by what they perceive as almost identical manifestos of the two election front-runners.

Both manifestos contain a long list of promises, and both concentrate heavily on crime.

Crime in France is growing with startling speed. The overall crime rate jumped 8 per cent last year after a 5 per cent increase the year before.

Chirac has borrowed the New York concept of "zero tolerance", while Jospin has been using a Tony Blair favourite, pledging to be "tough on crime, and tough on the causes of crime".

These, and other similarities have helped lead to a nationwide indifference to the coming elections. Across the country, abstentions are predicted to outnumber the record 22 per cent in the 1995 presidential election first round.

In recent polls, up to 37 per cent of voters said the election was not particularly important to them.

The two front runners have even been dubbed as "Chirpin" and "Jospac".

A question of heels

The two main contenders might not offer much of a choice to the people of France, but when it comes to their two wives, the difference could not be clearer.

Take their appearance: Bernadette Chirac, a buxom figure with coiffed blonde hair, in tweed skirt and sensible shoes, versus Sonia Rykiel, Jospin’s wife, comfortable in the left-wing beau monde and usually seen in slim, slink dress and heels.

As a widespread sense of indifference and cynicism seem to have spread throughout France, both outsiders and the wives of the two heavyweights may be the ones set to tip the scales in the coming presidential election.