French elections: 'It's ridiculous and confusing - I don't know if I've voted for the right person'

Down the block they stretched for 20 yards. There were three rivals on the centre-left, two on the centre-right, four Trotskyists, three shades of green, two deadly enemies on the far right and an assortment of 13 others, including the Party of Pleasure.

The only thing that was missing was the voters.

The candidates, in the form of a zig-zag hedge of official notice boards and garish campaign posters, barricaded the pavement outside a polling station in the Marais, in central Paris, yesterday morning. There were 27 contenders for a single seat in this constituency, the most crowded ballot paper in France.

The electors were, by comparison, thin on the ground. Some gazed in bafflement at the boards, as if still trying to make up their minds whom they should vote for. Others strode into the polling station – a primary school – without a glance at the visual cacophony outside.

One 53-year-old woman, Catherine, said: "It's ridiculous and confusing. It's become like one of those guessing games on the television. I think I've voted for the right person, in all conscience, but I may wake up tomorrow and see that, tactically, it might have been better to vote for someone else."

The story was the same all over France in the first round of the parliamentary elections yesterday: a dangerous mismatch of supply and demand; a surplus of candidates and a shortage of voters.

Partly because of generous campaign subsidies, there were 8,444 candidates, 30 per cent more than in the last election five years ago. Of these, just over half represented the main political parties.

Most fringe candidates failed last night to come anywhere close to the 12.5 per cent of the local registered electorate that they needed to reach the second round next week.

But the low turnout, and the scattering of the vote over so many candidates, also meant that many mainstream contenders of left and centre-right failed to qualify.

As a result, voters in many constituencies, spoiled for choice yesterday, will be left next week with two candidates: one from the far-right National Front, and one from either the left or centre-right.

Yves Peschet, 49, a school headmaster among the thin trickle of early voters in the Marais yesterday, said: "The situation is absurd and dangerous, but it reflects the truculent mood of the country.

"Many people feel that the system is unfair to them. There is a rejection of mainstream politics. Everyone wants to be their own candidate."