Paris ? Calling on citizens to protect France’s democracy, newspapers across the political spectrum on Saturday urged readers to cast their votes for President Jacques Chirac in his improbable matchup against ultra-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Chirac, a conservative, is expected to easily defeat Le Pen in today’s presidential runoff, but it will take a while for France to recover from the shock of this year’s presidential race.

Le Pen, leader of the National Front, has been widely accused of racism and anti-Semitism. His surprise qualification for the runoff, beating Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in the April 21 first round, stunned France.

Le Pen’s success prompted a huge wave of popular protests across France. Anti-Le Pen marchers flooded the streets nearly every day after his first-round showing, culminating in a gigantic march by more than a million people on the May Day holiday.

The left-leaning Paris newspaper Liberation on Saturday published a front-page picture of a Chirac ballot entering a ballot box. Over it was an enormous one-word headline: “Oui!” The day after the first round, the paper had run a picture of Le Pen covered by a huge “Non.”

The conservative daily Le Figaro featured the headline: “Chirac, of course.”

In an editorial, the daily La Montagne of the central French city of Clermont-Ferrand said Sunday’s election was “first a question of assuring the preservation of our liberties, of the Republic and of serene democracy. On Sunday, only a ballot with the name of Jacques Chirac can guarantee it.”

The protests were expected to continue all the way up to the ballot box. Some leftists, so disgruntled about having to vote for Chirac, were planning to put on gloves to handle the ballot. The Constitutional Council warned that anyone casting ballots with gloves or other improper behavior could risk the annulment of their votes.

In a sign of possible problems today, some left-leaning poll workers who supervise the voting weren’t expected to turn up on in protest of Le Pen.

“I’m missing 180 supervisors,” said Francois Rysto, the chief of staff at the city hall in the southwestern town of Villeurbaine, on Friday.

Still a question is how many people will abstain the first round had a record 28 percent abstention rate or how those who previously abstained will vote today.

Liberation, in Saturday’s editorial, urged voters to turn out massively for the vote “so that the percentage score of the leader of the National Front will be as low as possible.”

Chirac urged left-leaning voters to “stand in the way” of Le Pen “an extremely dangerous” man.