She's up, she's down, she's a hopeless case - no, she's back in the race, she's in the lead! If you followed the headlines drawn from French opinion polls over the last couple of weeks you'd have the impression Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal was on a roller coaster with more "loopings," as they say in France, than Space Mountain at Disneyland Paris. And you could be forgiven for thinking the polls are junk. They're not. But the headlines have been.

Indeed, the presentation of French polls has been so sensational and misleading that the gray lady of the Gallic press, Le Monde, took the rest of the fifth estate to task last night. "The Waltz of the Polls Disorients the Campaign," it headlined above a chronicle of the recent craziness. Thus last Saturday the daily Le Parisien ran a headline proclaiming "She Falls Behind." A poll had shown that in the second round she might lose to Nicolas Sarkozy by as much as ten points. On Monday, Le Figaro assured its readers "Nicolas Sarkozy Gains Ground," referring to a poll that had him picking up one single solitary point in the first round.

That night, Royal appeared on "I Have a Question For You," a new weekly program created by the private TF1 network that puts a single candidate in front of 100 more or less ordinary citizens for two hours of interrogation. Royal had hoped for a boost after she presented her detailed political program the previous week. Instead, she'd been sinking, and her party seemed to be crumbling out from under her as some high-profile Socialists, apparently spooked by the headlines, looked for the exits. So "Question" was critical for her.

Next morning, Royal got generally good reviews for a performance full of hope and compassion, including a Bill-Clintonesque moment in which she tried to console a wheelchair-bound member of the audience who was on the verge of tears as he talked about the suffering of the handicapped. But alongside the news stories about Royal's TV appearance, several papers ran polls that were taken before the broadcast, giving the impression to a casual reader that the program had done nothing to help her. In the event, the first polls taken after the broadcast, and published yesterday, showed Royal up by two points and leading in the first round after Sarkozy plunged by five.

With his usual sang-froid, the Gaullist interior minister told RTL radio, "You know, I had 24 polls putting me ahead. I never commented on them. And I noticed that, up to yesterday, Ségolène Royal's team was saying that surveys don't mean anything. I imagine that, since yesterday, she has changed her mind."

Meanwhile, François Bayrou, a bland center-right Gaullist who presents himself as the Un-Sarko and is trying to court Sego's defectors, has benefited from poll results that are to say the least misleading. One survey published Monday showed Bayrou beating Sarkozy in a second-round run-off for president. But, um, the same poll found Bayrou would never make it past the first round, where he'd be defeated by both Sarkozy and Royal. In a separate survey that asked respondents whether they wanted to see Bayrou make it to the second round, an impressive 55 percent said "yes." But there is fine print there, too: no survey has Bayrou getting anywhere near 20 percent in the first-round ballot. (It seems the respondents are saying, "We'd love to see you there, François. But you'll have to get someone else to vote for you.")

Adding to the confusion are extremely large numbers of potential voters who say they're either undecided or will abstain. So the poll yesterday that had Royal edging ahead of Sarkozy in the first round, 29 to 28, has Sarkozy beating Royal in the second round, 51 to 49. But in both cases the results are well within the 3-point margin of error - and a full 30 percent of the 884 people questioned said they wouldn't vote at all, or would void their ballots.

The fact is that pollsters don't know who the voters want as president because at this point, with the first round still two months away, the voters don't know either. "Almost 60 percent of those being polled today on their voting intentions are saying that they could change their minds," according to Francois Miquet-Marty, director of political research at the polling firm LH2. Back in 2002 at this time, only half were undecided. And uncertainty doesn't impact all candidates equally. Bayrou's voters, Miquet-Marty tells Newsweek, poll as those least committed to their man.

The French press has played up small poll differences between Bayrou and extreme right-wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, asking who best lays claim to the title of "third man." But Miquet-Marty notes that Le Pen's numbers traditionally pick up down the stretch. "Because his voters tend to be less interested in politics, they are more affected by the last couple of weeks of the campaign, when it is at its most intense," explains the pollster.

A survey released Sunday had 79 percent of respondents agreeing with the statement: "The presidential election has not been played out; a lot can happen between now and April 22." It's a good sign that the public isn't buying the headline hype. But, then, if you have to ask the question-.

-- Tracy McNicoll and Christopher Dickey