LYON (France) May 5: A 38-year-old French voter sported gardening gloves and a clothes pin on his nose in a show of distaste as he cast his ballot Sunday in the decisive second round presidential election.

The 38-year-old man from the central city of Lyon, who only identified himself as Jean-Claude, said he wanted to “make a statement” on French political life.

“French politics are a bit nauseating as a general rule ... I wanted to make that known in a very concrete way,” he told AFP.

Left-wing groups had urged voters to wear nose-pegs or gloves to show their frustration at having to vote for President Jacques Chirac in Sunday’s run-off vote to ensure he defeats extreme right-wing challenger Jean-Marie Le Pen.

However, campaign organisers backpedalled after the Constitutional Council, France’s highest court, ruled that wearing gloves or nose-pegs could violate laws against making ostentatious political statements in polling stations that could reveal the voter’s choice.

An association calling itself the Clothes-peg Collective called on voters to “scrupulously respect the voting process, particularly inside the polling stations, by not ostentatiously wearing a clothes peg on their nose.”

The accessory, it said, should be left at the door of the station “to exhibit its meaning from there”.—AFP