When far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen won a place in the second-round presidential elections in 2002, beating out the Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, the French seemed startled. They had given themselves little to choose from: right or more right.

Capturing just fewer than 17 percent of the vote in 2002, Le Pen, leader of the controversial, anti-immigrant National Front, set the stage for Jacques Chirac’s landslide victory in a bizarre contest of two conservatives.

Now, with Chirac’s term coming to a close and another round of presidential posturing upon them, the French look forward to a much more traditional, balanced field — at least politically.

In the French version of what Americans might label a presidential primary Sunday, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Ségolène Royal won pluralities to qualify for the second and final round of elections next month.

Speaking at a rally in Poitou-Charentes region, Royal promised a new future for the French people, troubled by immigration and a struggling protectionist economy.

Many French people “do not want a France ruled by the law of the strongest or the most brutal, sewn-up by financial interests, where all powers are concentrated in the same few hands,” the Times quoted her as saying. “I am a free woman, as you are a free people,” she added.

Those words carry an interesting subtext for American politicos gearing up for the 2008 presidential race. Like Hillary Clinton in the U.S., Royal seeks to become the first female president in her country.

Royal’s prospects look uncertain. Current public opinion polls in France show Sarkozy up eight points, but with record turnouts at the polls around France — more than 84 percent of France’s 44.5 million registered voters cast ballots — it looks like this election might be harder than usual to predict.

Whatever the outcome, it means a return to a new take on an old favorite in France: left verses right.

In The Fray Contributor