Last March's attack by Algerian-descent Frenchman Mohamed Merah in the French city of Toulouse, which left seven people killed, before the police killed the assailant in a gunfight, has overshadowed the election battle in France, bringing to the forefron home security as a central election issue.

Rightist incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy has used the issue to tip his scale in the election race, in which he lags behind his socialist contender François Hollande.

Sarkozy focused his efforts on issues of vital importance to the far right in France in order to get their votes, on top of which were security, immigration and Islam, as observers said Sarkozy has capitalized much on the Toulouse attack to court voters.

Sarkozy's government had launched a crackdown on "hard-line Islamists," arresting 20 people, particularly in Toulouse, and pledged more detentions of "sympathizers with Islamist extremists". [Ghādah Hamdī, al-Misrī al-Yawm, April 21, p. 12] Read original text in Arabic