PARIS (AP) – France began choosing a new president Sunday with millions of voters undecided and millions more voting for the first time, making the selection of two final candidates highly unpredictable.

The successor to Jacques Chirac, ending 12 years as head of state at the close of his second term, will face a large and listless economy and an alienated young Muslim population, among a host of problems.

Only four of the 12 candidates, including conservative front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal, who was No. 2 in polls, had a real chance of making it to a final round of voting May 6.

Turnout was likely to be high, with 3.3 million newly registered voters, many from rundown immigrant neighborhoods wracked by rioting in 2005.

“The participation rate is about 30 percent more than five years ago,” said Romain Pinault, an election official at a school, where a second voting station was added to handle the extra voters in Paris’ posh 8th district.

Polling firms said enough voters were undecided – at least 30 percent – that soundings taken over the past few months could say nothing about the result.

Voting stations were to begin closing at noon EDT, with those in large cities shutting by 2 p.m EDT, when initial projections were expected based on a partial count of votes from hundreds of stations around the country.

Mr. Sarkozy, blunt, reformist and pro-American, was frightening to many French. Ms. Royal presented a smiling, feminist mother-figure. Scholarly farmer’s son Francois Bayrou could pull off a surprise win, and the anti-immigrant nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen was still counting on big support, in hopes of repeating his shock 2002 second-place finish.

Mr. Sarkozy, long leading in polls, is ready to build a new pro-American French foreign policy, and proudly shook President Bush’s hand last year. He talks of a “rupture” with the past, including painful reforms of worker-friendly labor laws to make France more competitive. He has toned down his rhetoric in the campaign, but many predict he will revive it if elected.

Ms. Royal said she would never shake Bush’s hand without letting him know what she thought of his policies first. She says her France would be different because she would be its first woman president. She has tilted away from some of her Socialist Party’s policies, but her economic plan would lean left and reverse some reforms of the Chirac era.

Mr. Sarkozy and Royal are both in their 50s, carry iPods and appealed to young voters in Internet campaigns. Both infiltrated the political system from the outside – Ms. Royal as a woman, Mr. Sarkozy as the son of a Hungarian immigrant.

Mr. Sarkozy has made a career out of striving for the presidency. If he loses, it will be at the hands of a powerful “Anything But Sarkozy” push by those on the left angry at his tough line on youth crime and immigration.

Ms. Royal, meanwhile, floated the idea of a presidential bid just 16 months ago and skyrocketed to popularity. Dressed only in white or red and often referring to her four children, she struck a chord with voters tired of politics by paternalistic men from elite schools, and through a monthslong “listening campaign” across the country.

Ms. Royal risks not making it into the May 6 runoff, if voters stage the “silent revolution” sought by Ms. Bayrou, who has tapped frustration with the left-right divide and is offering something in the middle.

The French are worried about losing jobs to China, India and Brazil – and losing their influence on the world stage. French entreaties against the Iraq war, while praised by many, ultimately went ignored.

The health of the euro depends in part on whether the next French president can stimulate growth.

Mr. Sarkozy offers the bolder plan, by getting the French to work more and cutting taxes. Ms. Royal would raise the minimum wage and subsidize youth jobs.

New jobs are the only solution for the rundown housing projects plagued by discrimination, poverty, illiteracy and dependence on state handouts. The landscape remains little changed since the 2005 riots forced France and its leaders to acknowledge their problems.

Voters in France’s overseas territories began casting ballots Saturday, the first time polls in far-flung places such as Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Polynesia and two tiny islands off northeast Canada opened before those in the mainland.

The change was made to counter low voter turnout during 2002 elections. Then, overseas voters cast ballots on the same day as those on the mainland. Given the time difference between France and its overseas territories, that meant election results were already known before overseas voting had finished.

“Today, I have the feeling that my vote will serve for something in the final results,” said Monique Lesmon in Forte de France, Martinique.

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Associated Press Writer Herve Brival in Fort de France, Martinique, contributed to this report.