France holds presidential elections on Sunday and voters have a wide range of candidates to choose among - from the man they know, incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, to the extremes of left and right.
Public opinion polls indicate none of the candidates is likely to collect 50 percent of the votes and win the presidency outright on Sunday. Most likely, according to the polls, Sarkozy will have to face a run-off May 6 with the Socialist Party candidate, Francois Hollande.
But there are other candidates who could change the dynamic of the voting, as well as the French electorate.
On the far-left is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former Trotskyite and former Socialist Party cabinet minister who left the party to form his Left Front coalition.
Dominique Moisi, senior adviser to the French Institute for International Affairs in Paris, says Mélenchon is the most dynamic figure in an otherwise dull campaign.
"He [Mélenchon] is lively, the best speaker, a very gifted, cultivated radical," said Moisi. "He's a crypto-revolutionary and benefits from the support of the Communist Party. He has the party machine, plus the spontaneity of his personality. He is the only revelation of the campaign."
Mélenchon, sporting his signature red tie, has galvanized left-wing supporters with his fiery rhetoric and razor-sharp wit. A recent rally in Paris brought out 80,000 supporters - more than for Sarkozy.
Mélenchon is a member of the European parliament, but not a fan of the European Union. He has rejected the EU's economic austerity measures and he wants France to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO].
At the opposite political end of Mélenchon's Left Front is Marine Le Pen's National Front. She is the youngest daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the far right party.
Moisi said Marine Le Pen's party "is based on fear and hatred of the other - the Muslims, in particular.
"But of course, because she's a woman, because she's younger, she's a much more attractive version of the National Front. But you don't have to scratch a great deal to see that she is the true inheritor of her father," Moisi added.
John Merriman, a France expert at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, said one of Le Pen's signature themes has been the "Islamisation of France."
"There are 5 million Muslims living in France and there are many more undeclared," noted Merriman. "And of course, someone like Marine Le Pen, she wants to make the case that they are not really French and they are detracting from the values of France and they are corrupting France."
In between Le Pen's National Front and Mélenchon's Left Front is centrist Francois Bayrou. Five years ago, in the first round of presidential balloting, he shocked pundits and the political establishment by getting nearly a fifth of the votes.
Moisi said Bayrou remains an attractive politician.
"And at the same time, he's rejected because of the system, which is, at the end of the day, like America - a two party system, right and left," Moisi said. "And he is center. People agree with his ideas but don't take that person too seriously. So he's in between, sitting between two chairs."
Public opinion polls indicate that Mélenchon, Le Pen and Bayrou have little chance of making it to the second round of voting in May.
But experts say those who cast ballots for these three politicians will play a critical role in the second round, deciding whether incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy gets re-elected - or whether Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande makes it to the Élysée palace instead.
This is part two of a two-part series. In part one, we look at the leading candidates for French president. In this installment, we take a look at the rest of the field.
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