At the beginning of February there were 46 declared presidential candidates for the 2007 election. That number will shrink considerably by mid-March as some of them clear the bureaucratic hurdles and others fall away. But Jean-Marie Le Pen's shock upset in the first round five years ago proved it's a long race and no one should be counted out prematurely.

José Bové, 53, a star of the anti-globalization movement, joins an array of hopefuls to the left of Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal.. They include Green Party leader Dominique Voynet, Communist Party leader Marie-George Buffet, and, further left, Worker's Struggle head Arlette Laguiller along with the Communist Revolutionary League's Olivier Besancenot. In 2002, the veteran organizer Laguiller, 65, and Besancenot, a 32 year-old postal worker, scored a combined 10 percent of the vote, preventing the Socialist candidate from making it into the run-off.

Sarkozy's right flank is less crowded, but he will be wise to keep an eye on it. Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, 44, formerly of Sarkozy's own party, has put out a call to those who voted "Non" in a 2005 referendum rejecting the European Constitution. Further right, hard-liner Le Pen is joined by fellow anti-immigration candidate Philippe de Villiers, 57, who scored almost 5 percent when he last ran for president in 1995.

-- Tracy McNicoll