It's a few months before France votes again for its President, the first time after the 2002 election, when, to everyone's surprise, the far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen beat the Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin in the first round, only to lose in the second to the incumbent, Jacques Chirac. The BBC features a point-by-point comparison of the differing policies and approaches proposed by the two main candidates. From their appearances on French media, they both seem to have some good ideas in their programme albeit for very different reasons. On the charisma front, however, Royal is certainly lagging behind Sarkozy, both in her rhetoric and in her perceived knowledge of the issues, despite Sarkozy's sometimes extreme comments (racaille anyone?) and his appeal to the far-right.