Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was on Sunday guaranteed his party's nomination for France's presidential election next year, setting up a head-to-head battle with Socialist champion Segolene Royal.
The deadline for registering as a potential candidate for the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) expired at 1000 GMT, with only Mr Sarkozy throwing his hat into the ring, party officials said.
The UMP will officially anoint him as their candidate at a rally on January 14th, opening the way for three months of intense campaigning for one of the most powerful jobs in Europe.
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy shakes hands with youths as he visits Marseille today
Opinion polls suggest Mr Sarkozy and Ms Royal are neck-and-neck in the election race, with the first round of voting set for April 22nd followed by a second round run-off on May 6th.
However, Mr Sarkozy's hopes of dominating the conservative vote could yet come unstuck, with Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie indicating that she might run as an independent after refusing to challenge him for the UMP crown.
President Jacques Chirac has also refused to rule himself out of the race, saying he would only reveal his hand in the first three months of 2007. Aged 74 and languishing in the opinion polls after almost 12 years in power, Mr Chirac is highly unlikely to seek re-election.
However, he has never forgiven Mr Sarkozy for siding with a rightist rival in the 1995 presidential election and political analysts believe he is trying to convince Ms Alliot-Marie to stand against the interior minister to dent his political ambitions.
Ms Alliot-Marie has promised to make her intentions clear by January 14th. Polls suggest she would have no chance of beating Mr Sarkozy, but she could take enough votes from him to prevent him reaching the second round run off.
That would open the door for far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who won through to the second round of the 2002 election at the expense of the Socialist party candidate, thanks partly to divisions on the left.