PARIS (Reuters) — French presidential frontrunners Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal are starting to sound increasingly similar despite the ideological gulf between them.With seven months to go before the elections, Interior Minister Sarkozy, the champion of the right, and Socialist party favourite Royal are both striving to build an unstoppable momentum that will sweep them into the Elysee Palace.

And both have hit upon comparable formulas to get them there, using punchy language to appeal to voters well beyond their narrow party confines and promising a clean break with the current political generation.

“The image of party politics is at such a low ebb in France that both Sarkozy and Segolene Royal are reaching out beyond their constituencies and looking to be as popular as possible,” said Francois Miquet-Marty an analyst with LH2 pollsters.

Neither politician has yet been endorsed as their party’s candidate for the election, and Royal in particular faces a fierce battle to win the Socialist ticket in a primary vote set for November with a host of older men trying to shunt her aside.

But all recent opinion polls show a clear majority of French people expect to see them go head-to-head next year.

Their rivals, increasingly alarmed by the duo’s resilience in the polls, say that if they do face off they will just be looking at their own reflection.

“They copy each other without end. ... Each one takes the words of the other one,” said Francois Bayrou, a centrist candidate who is struggling to kick start his campaign.

Far right leader Jean Marie Le Pen dismissively calls the pair “Sarkolene and Segozy”.

In some of the hottest campaign issues to date, Sarkozy and Royal have appeared to sing in harmony, while their supposed political allies take up opposing positions.

Both have suggested doing away with a school catchment system that prevents parents from cherry picking schools, both are promising to be tough on juvenile crime, both are calling for a return to “traditional values”.

Sarkozy says pupils should stand to attention when teachers enter class. Royal says a second teacher should be in the class to guarantee discipline. Both want mandatory civilian service for school leavers to replace the defunct military service.

Even some of the rhetoric is getting to sound familiar.

“Everyone should ask what they can do for their country, not the other way round,” Royal said this month, echoing President John F. Kennedy. Hours later, Sarkozy told an audience: “It is time to tell the young: Stop asking what society can do for you, but ask yourselves what you can do for the Republic”.

Analysts say the pair are tapping into public disenchantment over politics, with voters complaining that their rulers are out of touch with the real problems.

Significantly, both Sarkozy and Royal are in their early 50s, at least 10 years younger than many rivals, and use the same direct approach to reach out to the electorate.

“There is a very strong demand for change in France which explains an awful lot about the success of Royal and Sarkozy. They best represent the call for something new,” said Brice Teinturier, head of political studies at pollsters TNS Sofres.

They also seem to have identified the same target audience they want to appeal to <\m> mainly working class voters who have proved the most unpredictable in the past, voting across the political spectrum and with no fixed allegiances.

“They want to build their popularity swiftly to bolster their credibility and they are both after the same electorate, who tend to come from modest households,” said Miquet-Marty.

The French media has revelled in the battle between “Sego-Sarko”, as the pair are called, but it might well prove that there is not room for the two of them at the top.