Registered voters in France are to head to the polls in the first round of the country's presidential election that may bring an end to the rule of incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Polls in mainland France and Corsica will be open from 08:00 to 18:00 (06:00-16:00 GMT) on Sunday, with voting stations in big cities remaining open for another two hours.

Among the 10 candidates, the two main hopefuls are incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and the Socialist Party nominee Francois Hollande.

Final polls conducted on Friday showed Hollande narrowly ahead of Sarkozy for Sunday's first round. The polls also suggest that far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and Left-winger Jean-Luc Melenchon will lag far behind, and the Centrist Francois Bayrou is likely to come fifth.

This is while hundreds of young demonstrators marched through Paris under the banner of "They Don't Represent Us," voicing opposition to the two top candidates from the country's ruling parties by emphasizing that they have failed to address major challenges facing the French population.

"Not one of the candidates appears credible to me. Politics is controlled by finance," Reuters quoted a 19-year-old student as saying.

The second round of the 2012 French presidential election, if necessary, will be held on May 6.