FRANCE'S ruling conservatives clung to a slippery lead as polls fell silent yesterday, a week before National Assembly elections.
However, the Socialist opposition leader, Mr Lionel Jospin, said a left wing upset was still possible.
The last surveys allowed before the May 25th June 1st vote showed the Prime Minister, Alain Juppe's centre right coalition poised to succeed, but with a sharply reduced majority.
Injecting some excitement into a lacklustre campaign, the polls showed the alliance between Socialists, Communists and ecologists making up some ground, and a third of voters saying they could still change their mind.
"Nothing is certain, and since nothing is decided this means victory is possible," Mr Jospin told a rally in the southwestern town of Perigueux, urging voters to teach the conservatives a lesson for broken promises.
The surveys indicated that the right would poll fewer votes than the combined left in the first round but end up with more seats in the runoff due to the single constituency system.
"What matters, given the surveys' error margins, is that there is a neck and neck race, an equality between the right wing coalition and the forces of change," he said.
The right was seen winning between 300 and 340 seats to the combined left's 210-250 in surveys of mainland France's 555 constituencies. It holds most of the other 22 overseas seats. The right won 470 seats in a 1993 landslide.
Meanwhile, voters cast their ballots in French Polynesia where the polls are held a week in advance due to organisation problems in islands scattered over a Pacific Ocean area the size of Europe. The law bans disclosing results before the mainland vote. Pitting the unpopular Mr Juppe against the uncharismatic Socialist leader, the campaign has so far failed to shake the scepticism of voters doubtful that either side can solve the country's problem of record unemployment.
The campaign focuses on whether more austerity is needed to allow France to join the single European currency or whether it may be relaxed in order to curb the 12.8 per cent jobless rate.
The polling institute BVA noted that, against the usual trend, the percentage of voters undecided or uninterested in the campaign appeared to be growing as the vote approached.
"An election which does not thrill . . . and leaves millions of uninterested people out of the debate is a defeat for all," the weekly Journal du Dimanche said.
Injecting more uncertainty, BVA said growing numbers of supporters of Mr Jean Marie Le Pen's far right National Front appeared willing to heed his advice to vote for the left in the runoff in order to trip the conservatives. He hopes that having to share power with the left could prompt President Chirac to call another snap election next year in which the National Front could be better placed.
While the National Front is seen winning at the most a coupled of seats, pollsters say its supporters are in a position to play a decisive role in the run off.
Despite its reduced lead, the right drew encouragement from a poll showing that Mr Chirac's standing rose from 31 to 39 per cent last week. Mr Juppe recovered slightly, from 27 to 29 per cent.
French law bans publishing any opinion poll in the week before the vote, meaning no more surveys may be disclosed as the runoff takes place a week after the first round. But the law does not forbid carrying out opinion polls or publishing them abroad, and the Internet looks certain to make the ban a myth.
French media said several foreign newspapers were due to order their own polls, or to use those made for French political parties, and publish them on the Internet, which has some 300,000 subscribers in France.