To voters, the conservative Sarkozy gets much of the blame. While he’s likely to make it past Sunday’s first-round voting and into the decisive second round May 6, polls show his support waning.

They predict another man will trounce Sarkozy in the runoff and take over the Elysee Palace: Socialist Francois Hollande.

Under a quirk of French electoral rules, balloting got under way Saturday in France’s embassies and overseas holdings, starting in tiny Saint Pierre and Miquelon — islands south of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic Ocean. Campaigning and the release of poll data have been suspended until the first-round results come in Sunday evening.

Surprises may await, like a surge by the anti-immigrant far right or utopian far left. How votes for the other myriad candidates shake out Sunday will weigh heavily on the remainder of the campaign, on the makeup of the future government and on parliamentary elections in June.

And that will weigh on the fate of France — and a struggling Europe in which it plays a central role.

FEAR OF FINANCE

Hollande, in his Mr. Nice Guy kind of way, has tapped into a fear of the free market that has always held more sway in France than almost anywhere in the West, and has enjoyed a resurgence in the era of Occupy Wall Street and anti-banker backlash.

Hollande wants to tax high-income earners at 75 percent and reconsider a hard-won European fiscal treaty meant to stem the continent’s debt crisis. He says it’s too focused on cost-cutting and hurts ordinary folks.

Investors worry that France — no matter who’s in charge, but especially if it’s Hollande — is on a path to debt disaster if it doesn’t tighten public finances and slash or rethink its generous welfare benefits.

Yet Hollande is just one of five leftists in Sunday’s race — and he’s the most moderate and pragmatic of the bunch. If fiery rival Jean-Luc Melenchon, with his red neck-scarves and rallies thick with communist red flags, scores strongly, he and his voters will press Hollande to swing his own policies even farther leftward.

Speaking to international reporters Friday, Melenchon — who wants to tax the ultra-rich at 100 percent — called international finance “parasitic.” He criticized U.S. hegemony and military might, looking instead to communist China for partnership.

FEAR OF ISLAM

On the other side of the spectrum, the campaign fear-mongering has a different focus: France’s No. 2 religion.

Far right candidate Marine Le Pen rails against the “Islamization” of France and made a stink about the widespread availability of halal meat and Muslims praying on sidewalks for lack of mosque space.

The rhetoric horrifies many voters and stigmatizes France’s estimated 5 million Muslims — Western Europe’s largest Muslim population. But it’s hit a nerve among many French, especially after a suspected gunman killed Jewish schoolchildren and paratroopers in the name of radical Islam in a rampage last month.

Le Pen — and many of her voters — link Islam with immigration, since many French Muslims have family roots in former colonies in Africa. And they think France has too much of both.

At an exuberant Le Pen rally in Paris this week, 32-year-old Fabien Engelmann of Hayange in eastern France said she’s “the only one who can defend the country” against multiple threats from the “Europe of Brussels” to Islamization.

And Sarkozy has followed Le Pen’s lead.

He championed a ban on Islamic face veils that he says imprison women and go against French values, and says the country should slash the number of immigrants it takes in. And he’s threatened to pull France out of Europe’s border-free travel zone if more is not done to tackle illegal immigration, an idea gaining traction in other capitals.

ANGER AT SARKOZY

More than anything else, this French election campaign is a referendum on the man currently in charge.

Sarkozy inspired voters in 2007 with pledges to break with the past and make France a more dynamic economy.

After an initial wave of reforms, his momentum fizzled. His stormy personal life got in the way: He divorced months into office, then quickly married former supermodel Carla Bruni, and became seen as a bling-bling president more concerned with pleasing his super-rich friends than serving the public.

He enjoyed a string of foreign policy successes, improving relations with the United States and Israel, leading an international airstrike campaign in Libya, rallying European partners to stem Europe’s financial crisis.

But voters at home felt forgotten and hurt by a presidency that included France’s worst recession since World War II.

Hollande, despite a bland persona and few eye-catching campaign ideas, has been more popular than Sarkozy for months.

Sarkozy showed signs of a possible comeback once he hit the campaign trail. The shooting rampage in southern France also gave him a platform to appear presidential and project the tough guy image that helped launch him to national prominence.

But in recent days his support has lagged again. The last polls before the election, released Friday, show Sarkozy slipping a few points behind Hollande in the first round — and a crushing 10 to 15 points away from victory in the runoff.

In a Friday night rally in the Riviera city of Nice, Sarkozy sought to distance himself from the far right and appealed to his followers: “We must win!”

Hollande looked calm and easygoing as he walked down the main street of Vitry-le-Francois in eastern France on Friday, stopping in a pizzeria, several bars and cafes and a clothing shop to chat.

Crowds were passionate in the nearby town of Saint Dizier, where factories have closed and unemployment is a key concern.

“Francois for president!” fans chanted, pushing and shoving to shake Hollande’s hand.

Other chants targeted his chief rival: “Sarkozy, you’re finished!”

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Greg Keller in Vitry-le-Francois, Cecile Brisson in Saint Dizier, Sylvie Corbet in Nice and Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report.

Fifteen Poles have complained that Russia failed to hold a proper investigation or to find those responsible for the 1940 killing by the Soviet secret police of some 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in the Katyn forest and other places.

The Katyn massacre has been a sore point in Russia-Poland relations for decades since 1943, when the Soviet Union blamed the killings on the Nazis. It was in 2010 that Russia formally took the blame when the lower chamber of Russia’s parliament admitted the executions were ordered by Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

In the 1990s, Russia launched an investigation into the killings, but discontinued it in 2004. It refused to make its reasoning available to the relatives or to the European court.

In Moscow, Russia’s Justice Ministry reported Monday’s ruling without comment.

But Poland’s government said the case shows Russia’s disregard for international law.

“It is not for the first time that Russia has a problem with following the standards of a European state of law,” said Justice Minister Jaroslaw Gowin said on Polish TVN24.

One of the 15 Polish relatives, Ryszard Adamczyk, said that officials in Russia have “their own laws, they disregard international laws.”

In Moscow, Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of the committee in charge of relations with the former Soviet nations in the lower house of parliament, said the European Court of Human Rights had tried to walk a middle line in its ruling.

“The judges apparently sought to partly satisfy the Polish party without hurting Russia too much,” Slutsky said, according to the RIA Novosti news agency. He said the issue requires deeper consideration, adding that he wasn’t sure that the judges had studied all materials available.

Slutsky said the court ruling is unlikely to have any impact on Russian-Polish ties, saying that while the issue remains an irritant, relations between Moscow and Warsaw are gradually becoming more constructive thanks to economic cooperation.

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AP writers Monika Scislowska in Warsaw and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

Sarkozy turned out to be a big movie buff, and Weinstein said that when they met, the French leader quoted from a five-hour documentary Weinstein and Martin Scorcese once did and praising Danish silent filmmaker Carl Dreyer.

“He sees a movie almost every day. … He understands that movies can change somebody’s life,” Weinstein said.

Sarkozy’s office wouldn’t comment on the meeting with Weinstein, other than to say it took place.

Sarkozy, facing a tough bid for re-election next month, also understands that French cinema would be in much worse shape without government subsidies, and made a point of saying so in a congratulatory letter to the “Artist” Oscar winners.

Thanks to that government support, the success of “The Artist,” and especially the anti-piracy law that Sarkozy championed, “France is having its most robust cinema on a global basis than at any time,” Weinstein said.

“Sarkozy has the guts to go and make the toughest content law in the world,” he said. “It’s given French cinema a rebirth.”

The French law allows authorities to cut off Internet access to people who download illegally, with a three-strikes-and-you’re-out system. Entertainment companies have cheered it but critics say it threatens civil liberties and is difficult to fairly enforce.

Sarkozy also asked about Weinstein’s upcoming film “Bully,” a documentary examination of school bullying that follows five kids and families over the course of a school year.

“That it’s on the French president’s radar tells me, wow, we are having a bigger impact than I thought,” he said.

In the United States, Weinstein is protesting the R rating given to the film because of six expletives. Such a rating means kids under 17 can’t see it without an adult — which Weinstein says defeats the purpose of the film by limiting its accessibility to those it speaks to most, adolescents.

“I’m sure in France it would be rated G. They’d put it on TV. They would say this is really important for the social fabric,” he joked.

Weinstein says “The Artist” paved the way for another Oscar breakthrough: a foreign film — with dialogue next time — winning the best picture award. “The Artist” was made by a French director and with French leading actors, but wasn’t relegated to the foreign film category that most non-English films fall into because it was silent.

“We’ll break that barrier too. Whether it’s me or somebody else,” Weinstein said in a suite in the Ritz Hotel on tony Place Vendome, his Legion of Honor medal pinned to his chest. “This is a step in the right direction.”

He predicted more silent films and other “daring works of art” to come from Hollywood, too.

As for “Artist” star Jean Dujardin, Weinstein has high hopes, comparing him to Marcello Mastroianni. “He can charm anybody. He can do anything.”

Dujardin won the best actor award because of his immense talent, Weinstein said, adding with a trademark belly laugh — “and because he’s good with dogs.”

The ESMA said in a statement that the four countries “have today announced or will shortly announce new bans on short-selling or on short positions” as of Friday.

The French market regulator, the AMF, announced late Thursday that it is banning for 15 days net short-selling on 11 stocks, including those of banks Societe Generale, BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole and leading insurers.

Belgium’s market authority said it would ban short-selling on financial shares such as leading banks and insurers as of Friday. Belgium had already banned naked short selling, basically a bet on a decline in the price of a share without borrowing the share, since August 2008.

Several countries banned short selling amid the financial crisis of 2008 to try to tame volatility. But some experts said the bans actually contributed to a feeling of uncertainty.

French bankers and officials scrambled to soothe investors’ nerves after days of suggestions that France could be the next major economy to lose its coveted triple-A credit rating. By late in the day, those efforts appeared to have an effect, but economists said the rebound remained very fragile.

The European Union’s markets supervisor said Thursday that regulators were increasing surveillance of financial markets following the days of steep selloffs.

Bank of France head Christian Noyer blamed “unfounded rumors” for plunges in the shares of top banks, including Societe Generale and BNP Paribas, and said the country’s financial institutions were sound. The country’s market regulator warned of sanctions against anyone who fuels or profits from rumors that fed the sell-off.

Noyer said that French banks’ first-half earnings “confirmed their solidity in a difficult economic environment” and that the banks’ capital cushions were healthy.

French bank stocks fell Thursday until strong U.S. jobs data helped propel solid gains on Wall Street late in the European trading day. BNP Paribas closed up 0.3 percent and Societe Generale rose 3.7 percent.

France is taking pains to assure markets that it won’t be the next to see its credit rating downgraded.

Attention will be on France’s release of second-quarter GDP figures on Friday. Some have warned that France could suffer if it has to spend significant new money to bail out more struggling eurozone states.

The leaders of the eurozone’s biggest economies, Germany and France, announced they will meet Tuesday to discuss solutions to Europe’s financial difficulties.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office said that the two will come up with “joint proposals” on the governance of the eurozone before the end of the summer. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said the meeting would focus on suggestions for how to improve the zone’s economic policy and crisis management.

All three leading credit rating agencies reaffirmed their triple-A assessment of France, and analysts said they could not identify a trigger for the market turmoil.

“There’s nothing behind it, it’s a market of malintentioned speculators trading on pure rumors,” said Marc Touati, an economist at French trading firm Assya Compagnie Financiere.

After Societe Generale, France’s second-biggest bank, saw its share price drop nearly 15 percent Wednesday, the bank asked the French market regulator to investigate the rumors that it was on the ropes because of its heavy exposure to debt from troubled eurozone economies.

Societe Generale CEO Frederic Oudea called the rumors “totally unfounded” and “irrational.” Speaking on France-Info radio, he urged calm and insisted that the bank’s fundamentals are sound.

Oudea said Societe Generale had already accounted for its exposure to Greece’s debts in its second quarter earnings.

France’s growth prospects are considerably better than those of Italy and Spain’s, but its economic expansion is slowing and it’s failed for years to reduce a deficit that stood at 7.1 percent last year. No other eurozone economy with a triple-A rating has a higher debt than France’s — around 85 percent of national income.

Adding to market worries, French presidential elections scheduled for the spring of 2012 may make it difficult for the government to implement further austerity measures at a time when the economy is slowing.

Elsewhere in Europe, Greece announced a rise in unemployment after a series of unpopular austerity measures aimed at dragging it out of debt that sparked troubles across the eurozone.

And Italy’s finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, told lawmakers Thursday that tough and speedy measures are needed over the next two years to balance the budget in 2013. The market turbulence has seen Italy’s borrowing costs in the markets spike up to uncomfortably high levels.

Gabriele Steinhauser in Brussels and Melissa Eddy in Berlin contributed to this report.

“I wouldn’t say that the bulk of the work in Libya is being done by our American friends,” Sarkozy told reporters in Brussels at a European Union summit. “The French and English and their allies are doing the work.”

The United States has insisted on a backseat role in Libya. It led the initial coalition airstrikes in March, but in April withdrew U.S. forces from the direct combat role, limiting them to battlefield surveillance, aerial tanking and other support roles.

Seven NATO members are now participating in air strikes: Britain, France, Belgium, Canada, Norway, Denmark and Italy. But, as Gates said, most of NATO’s 28 members, including Germany, have refused to join the strike mission in Libya.

Sarkozy wouldn’t give a timeline for an eventual end to the 3-month-old air campaign, saying that would play into Gadhafi’s hands and “I don’t think that would be constructive.”

“Things are progressing. I would have liked them to progress more quickly, but they are progressing,” he said. “We must continue until Mr. Gadhafi leaves.”

There has been mounting frustration in European capitals over the rising costs of NATO’s military campaign at a time of severe financial austerity, and over the alliance’s failure to deal a knockout blow to Gadhafi’s forces, despite an overwhelming advantage in firepower.

After Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron briefed the other EU leaders on the Libya campaign, other EU leaders were keen to stress political solutions.

“(Our) nations have saved thousands and thousands of people and saved from destruction cities and villages. We expect that it will all end soon and we are pushing for political mediation which will deliver a final solution,” Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said in Brussels.

EU President Herman Van Rompuy said, “We will keep up the military pressure as long as Gadhafi stays. We are also preparing with international partners the post-Gadhafi democratic transition.”

The European Union has repeatedly condemned Gadhafi’s government, saying there can be no impunity for crimes against humanity and urging his followers to distance themselves from such crimes. The bloc has also imposed sanctions on Libyan leaders and frozen the assets of government companies.

The war has sparked accusations that EU nations participating in NATO’s aerial onslaught — Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, and Denmark — have overstepped the U.N. resolution, which authorized only the protection of Libyan civilians, the imposition of an arms embargo and the setting up of a no-fly zone.

The U.S. defense secretary, in his comments earlier this month, said not enough NATO members are pitching in and that the Libya campaign illustrates his concerns about Europe’s lack of appetite for defense.

Sarkozy called Gates’ comments “unfair,” “not very nice,” and the result of “a bit of bitterness.” Gates “is about to retire, and visibly that didn’t make him happy.”