After two weeks of political mayhem, French voters are being urged today to re-elect Mr Jacques Chirac in tomorrow's presidential vote and deny far-right leader Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen victory.
With the mud-slinging campaign officially over and the noisy street rallies a distant echo, voters had a final day to reflect on an election that has become a referendum on the extreme right after Mr Le Pen's shock success last month.
Mr Le Pen, a 73-year-old former political street brawler who once called the Holocaust a "detail" of history, stunned Europe on April 21st when he edged Socialist Prime Minister Mr Lionel Jospin into third place in the first round with 17 per cent of the vote.
After the poll, voters of all political stripes took to the streets in a huge show of opposition to Mr Le Pen. France's top newspapers today urged readers to vote for the sleaze-tarnished Mr Chirac to block the xenophobic far-right leader.
The left-wing daily Liberation printed the word "Yes" in big block letters on its cover over a drawing of a ballot being cast for Mr Chirac - evoking the huge front-page "No" it ran the morning after Mr Le Pen knocked Mr Jospin out of the race.
Under a banner headline that read "For France", the more conservative Le Figaro broke its tradition of not endorsing candidates and pledged its support to Mr Chirac.
Mr Le Pen appeared flustered by the rare show of unity. When asked in a BBC radio interview today if he could win, he replied: "I don't know. I hope so."
With Mr Chirac seen winning, everyone is looking ahead to parliamentary elections for the real contest.
Those elections, held over two rounds on June 9th and 16th, will determine the colour of the next government and whether Mr Chirac again has to share power with the left after five years of paralysing "cohabitation" with Mr Jospin.
Commentators say tomorrow's vote could influence Mr Chirac's choice of an interim prime minister to serve between May and June -- a sign of what could come if his conservatives were to win a majority in the 577-seat National Assembly.
The main favourites for the job are provincial moderate Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin and the ambitious Gaullist Mr Nicolas Sarkozy.
"A high Le Pen score would push Chirac to the right, putting Sarkozy in the prime minister's office," Liberation wrote, saying a weak showing by Mr Le Pen could keep Mr Chirac closer to the political centre.
The main question seems to be Mr Chirac's margin of victory, with some polls seeing him claiming up to 80 per cent of the vote. With signs that Mr Le Pen failed to generate momentum in the last days of the campaign, turnout will be key to his showing.
A record 28 per cent of France's 41.2 million voters stayed away in the first round and one third opted for candidates on the political extremes, amid disillusion with the mainstream.
Polls suggest interest in tomorrow's runoff surged with Mr Le Pen's shock qualification, and that abstentions would be far lower -- a showing that would almost certainly boost Mr Chirac.