FRANCE: How will they ever find enough hoardings for all the posters? Enough baskets to sort the ballots? Enough airtime for 17 - count them, 17 - presidential candidates? Lara Marlowe reports from Paris.
If the Council of State confirms their applications today, France has set its own all-time record. The previous high number of candidates in the presidential sweepstakes was 12 in 1974.
The campaign for the April 21st first round will open officially tomorrow. "It's not an election; it's a mail-order catalogue," the humourist Laurent Ruquier said.
The eldest, the extreme right-wing National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, is 73 years old and is standing for the fourth time. The youngest, Trotskyist postman Olivier Besancenot, is 27.
In a country where they've tried to enforce gender parity by law, only four candidates are female: the Bible-wielding, family values candidate, Christine Boutin; the Trotskyist pasionara, Arlette Laguiller, the former conservative environment minister, Corinne Lepage; and a left-wing deputy from French Guyana, Christiane Taubira.
There is a hunters' candidate - Jean Saint-Josse - and a surprise "taxpayers' candidate" whom virtually no one ever heard of before yesterday, Nicolas Minguet.
Two ecologists and two members of the extreme right, three Trotskyists and five representatives of the ruling "plural left" coalition.
All had to obtain endorsement from 500 elected officials.
Is the plethora of candidates evidence of thriving democracy, the French wonder, or just evidence of chaos?
Le Monde has described it as proof of the enduring attraction of France's majestic, monarchical presidency.
In any case, it showed that the two biggest political parties, the Socialists led by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and the Gaullists led by President Jacques Chirac, leave millions of French people uninspired.
At opposite ends of the political spectrum, Ms Laguiller and Mr Le Pen are tied for third place and are expected to win up to 20 per cent of the vote in the first round of the election. The impression of choice is illusory.
There is little doubt that Mr Jospin and Mr Chirac will face each other in the second round on May 5th.
Alarmed by Ms Laguiller's high opinion poll scores, Mr Jospin is making a tardy attempt to seduce extreme-left voters, bringing the words "working class" back into his speeches.
Mr Chirac was yesterday labouring under yet another financial scandal, as the satirical Canard Enchainé revealed massive cash expenditure on food during his second term as Mayor of Paris, from 1987 until he became president in 1995. French voters are wondering how Mr and Mrs Chirac managed to spend over €600 on food every day for eight years.
Voters invariably say they want new, younger politicians - an opinion poll showed the ideal French president would be 48 - yet only three of the 17 candidates are under 50. And five have stood for France's highest office before.
Reuters adds:
Much of Mr Chirac's food spending while he was mayor was in cash. The couple's gourmet tastes helped them notch up eating expenses averaging more than 4,000 francs, or €610 a day between 1987 and 1995, according to an official audit.
Speaking late on Tuesday, Mr Chirac denied any wrongdoing when confronted with the revelations. "If, for reasons I am unaware of, there were cases of embezzlement or malfunctioning, it is up to the City of Paris to take legal action," he told France 3 television.
A spokesman for the incumbent Paris mayor, a Socialist, said the report was not yet finished and City Hall planned no action at this stage.
Mr Chirac is already the centre of a probe into suspect cash payments he made for private trips abroad in the 1990s.
He has denied any impropriety and remains immune from questioning or possible prosecution as long as he is head of state.
The audit by public inspectors, as reported in Le Canard Enchaine, found that 9.5 million francs of the total 14 million francs of food bills between 1987 and 1995 were paid for in cash.
