With only seven days remaining before the first round of voting, many electors have yet to make a final choice and no candidate is generating popular enthusiasm. The French electorate is notoriously changeable so several permutations are still possible.

However, a graph of daily tracking polls in the past month suggests some clarity is beginning to emerge in a fascinating but often confusing electoral battleground.

The unexpected challenge of the centrist candidate, Fran�ois Bayrou, seems to have peaked and fallen away.

The far-right leader, JeanMarie Le Pen, remains menacingly popular but appears unlikely to repeat his stunning coup of five years ago when he reached the twocandidate second round.

The graph suggests the centre-right Nicolas Sarkozy is virtually assured of a place in the run-off on 6 May. In the past month, he has never fallen below 29%. President Jacques Chirac scored only 19% in the first round in 2002.

The Socialist candidate, S�gol�ne Royal, was neckand-neck with Bayrou in mid-March. She saw off his challenge, dipped again, but now appears to have established a five- or six-point margin over the man who had threatened to turn conventional French electoral wisdom on its head.

Royal has fluctuated between 22.5% and 25.5% in the Ipsos-Dell daily poll. This has never been enough to challenge the lead of Sarkozy but is a relatively high figure for a centre-left candidate in the first round of a presidential election.

Opinion polling is notoriously difficult in France.

More than in other country, voters in France - especially far-right voters - tend to lie to pollsters. Royal's lead over Bayrou is not far beyond the pollster's margin of error.

However, the trend picked up by the daily poll - borne out by many other polls - is not very encouraging for Bayrou. He seemed likely to overtake Royal in midMarch. His support line on the graph fell away, recovered but has now been flat for several days.

Le Pen scored just under 17% to reach the second round in 2002. His support in the Ipsos-Dell poll has crept up in the past month to 13% to 14%.

This figure is highly adjusted and believed to be based on raw polling figures showing him at only around 6% or 7%. On past experience, French pollsters know that they have to boost Le Pen's raw score and correspondingly reduce those of other candidates.

The level of adjustment has been increased this year to take account of the shock in 2002. Overall, though, the trend shown by the daily tracking poll does not suggest that Le Pen is likely to reach the 20% that he accepts will be necessary to reach the second round.

The same Ipsos-Dell poll consistently shows Sarkozy defeating Royal in the showdown on 6 May.

Socialist campaigners refuse to be despondent.

They say there is clear antiSarkozy majority in the country and Royal, having been written off by many people, would gain a large electoral "bounce" if she reached the second round.