PARIS, April 28 (UPI) -- An alliance between the second- and third-ranking presidential candidates in France was ruled out in a Paris debate Saturday.
Second-ranked Socialist Segolene Royal and third-place centrist Francois Bayrou of the Union for French Democracy ruled out an alliance to defeat front-runner Nicholas Sarkozy of the Conservative Party in the debate, which Sarkozy declined to attend.
In the first round of presidential polling on April 22, Sarkozy secured 31.2 percent of the vote, and Royal received 25.7 percent, preliminary reports said.
Bayrou, president of the Union for French Democracy, emerged late in the race as a surprisingly strong candidate, after winning only 7 percent of the vote in 2002. While he failed to out-poll either Sarkozy or Royal, his 6.8 million supporters could determine the outcome of the runoff in the May 6 vote.
A correspondent for Russia's Novosti news agency in Paris said surveys show about 30 percent of the Centrist electorate would vote for Sarkozy May 6; 35 percent said they would support Royal and the others are undecided.
