France, which continues to have strong relations with Lebanon after the end of its mandate over the country in 1943, co-wrote a 2004 UN Security Council resolution calling on Syrian troops to leave Lebanon and for militias - indluding Hezbollah - to be disarmed.

Former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri - whose February 2005 killing led eventually to the exit in March of Syrian troops from Lebanon - was among foreign dignitaries most often received by French President Jacques Chirac.

In a statement ahead of her arrival, Royal said "I want to find out for myself about the reality in Lebanon and see what role France can play in helping Lebanon out of the current crisis."

"In the current, worrying situation in Lebanon, I am here to affirm my condemnation of any political assassination and my faith in democracy, and to convey my friendship to the entire Lebanese people."

Royal was received at Beirut airport by anti-Syrian Druze leader MP Walid Jumblatt, head of the Progressive Socialist Party who had invited her to Lebanon, as well as Information Minister Ghazi Aridi and Telecommunication Minister Marwan Hamadeh, an AFP photographer said.

Royal was due to meet with Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and the pro-Syrian parliament speaker Nabih Berri, and will also be received by the parliament's foreign affairs committee later Thursday.

On Friday, she is to visit the former Lebanese president Amine Gemayel, whose son Pierre Gemayel, a Christian Lebanese cabinet minister, was gunned down last week, to present her condolences to the family.

Also Friday, she will meet members of the UN force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, to which France is the largest contributor with 1,650 out of a total of 10,500 troops.

Royal said her meeting with members of the UNIFIL force was meant to "show them our support and gratitude".

"A more credible UNIFIL is a factor for stabilisation and peace for Lebanon and the region," she said.

Royal's trip is due to take her to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan, with top-level meetings scheduled with leaders across the region, according to her press office.

The 51-year-old son of a Hungarian immigrant has come to dominate France's political scene in the last five years, during which he has served as interior minister (twice), finance minister and - since November 2004 - president of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).

With relentless energy, constant media exposure and a succession of new laws, he has sought to impose himself as the natural candidate to lead France into "rupture" from a discredited past.

Polls show he has a popular touch - many in France respond well to his plain-talking and 'man of action' persona - but they also expose his biggest weakness: that more than other mainstream politicians he has polarised the public. People either love him or hate him.

The man who set up the country's first ever official Islamic body and argues for US-style positive discrimination to favour disadvantaged immigrants is thus reviled on the political left and in the poor "banlieues" (suburbs) for his hard line on law-and-order.

Much-reported remarks before the 2005 riots, when he described delinquents as "racaille" or yobs, convinced many that he is a more presentable version of far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, and his biggest handicap is the fear that as president he will divide rather than unite the nation.

Born in January 1955, Sarkozy had a privileged upbringing in the affluent Paris suburb of Neuilly where he served as mayor from 1983 to 2002. He studied law and - unlike most of France's ruling class - avoided the elite National Administration School (ENA).

His political career began in the 1970s as a supporter of future president Jacques Chirac, with whom his career became closely entangled. Chirac initially saw him as a possible heir to the Gaullist mantle, but the two fell out after Sarkozy's support for a rival in the 1995 election.

Recently Sarkozy's own presidential ambitions have been dogged by suspicions that Chirac, and his ally Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, are trying to block his path to power.

Sarkozy served as budget minister from 1993 to 1995, and was later secretary-general of the RPR party, precursor of the UMP. In 1999 he led the RPR to a disastrous defeat in European elections.

With Chirac's reelection in 2002 Sarkozy was overlooked for the post of prime minister and instead took over at interior, where he began his hectic progress towards the 2007 presidential deadline.

Anxious to break with what he sees as an outdated state-centred economic system, Sarkozy urges the need for France to adapt to globalisation via reforms that he says are now commonplace in the so-called 'Anglo-Saxon world'.

He has called for looser labour laws to bring down unemployment, the sell-off of public housing, cuts in the number of civil servants and private investment in the university system. His support for positive discrimination is highly controversial in a land wedded to the principal of equality.

On Europe Sarkozy has called for a slimmed down mini-constitution to replace the text that was rejected by France in a 2005 referendum, and he opposes Turkish entry to the European Union.

He wants to improve links with the US, saying in a recent book that he "feels much closer to American society than to many others."

Twice married, Sarkozy has three children - the third by his current wife Cecilia with whom his stormy relationship has received widespread coverage in the gossip magazines.

Short of stature, dark of hair and burning with ambition, Sarkozy has been called a latterday Bonaparte, bent on transforming the country by authority and will-power.

Opposing him across the divide is the socialist Ségolène Royal, whose ability to harness popular fervour behind a dream of renaissance has evoked comparison with another national hero: Joan of Arc.

With Venezuelans going to the polls on Sunday, the story of Inveval provides a insight into Mr Chavez's vision for Venezuela. As polls show the President poised to secure re-election easily, Venezuelans are wondering whether the experience of Inveval will be repeated throughout the country.

"Chavez is very much with the working class. In the past no president did what Chavez has done," said Jorge Paredes, who bears the title of company president but receives the same wage as each of the other 60 workers at Inveval.

So far only around half a dozen privately owned companies have been expropriated by the government. In the countryside, a million acres of state-owned land have been turned over to peasants and co-operatives, while only a handful of private estates have been seized. But Mr Chavez has said his third term will be his most radical as he develops his vision to build "socialism for the 21st century".

Mr Chavez's opponents - who have gathered around Manuel Rosales, the centrist governor of Zulia state - say they fear the president wishes to transform the country into Cuba, with whose leader he has a close relationship. The views of Yvonne Vidal, a Rosales-supporter in Caracas, were typical. "We have the option of a Cuban-style system versus democracy," said the 42-year administrator. "There should be no middle ground with [Chavez]. He says you are either with him or against him."

But the President's aides dispute such claims. His spokesman, Martin Pacheco, said: "It's completely false ... Those who don't have anything are going to be included and they are going to be given [help] and land." Asked if this required the wholesale seizing of private land, he replied: "No. We have enough land. We have a land law that guarantees a better distribution of land."

Most polls give Mr Chavez a 20-point advantage over Mr Rosales, though the incumbent is aiming even higher - hoping to secure 10 million votes out of an estimated electorate of around 16 million. This would place him on more than 62 per cent. A poll published this week by the US-based Evans/McDonough Company suggested a 57-38 victory for Mr Chavez over Mr Rosales.

The President's supporters are overwhelming the country's poor who have been helped by thousands of "missions" established with the country's oil wealth to provide soup kitchens, free clinics and subsisided foods. The government estimates that 1.5 million people have been taught to read and the country's adult literacy rate is an estimated 93 per cent.

Mr Chavez's ability to overcome a coup in 2002 and then a recall vote in 2004 involving a variety of groups have also undoubtedly bolstered his position. He has won international support among those on the left by his readiness to denounce Washington's "imperialism". While Mr Rosales's campaign posters ask voters to "Dare to Change", Mr Chavez's placards read "Vote Against Imperialism" and "Vote Against the Devil" - a reference to his description of Mr Bush during a recent speech at the UN. Returning to that theme earlier this week, he told hundreds of thousands of supporters in Caracas: "We are confronting the devil, and we will hit a home run off the devil next Sunday. On 3 December we're going to defeat the most powerful empire on earth by knockout."

Analysts say that aside from such rhetoric, Mr Chavez has developed his influence throughout the region by acting as a source of credit for countries such as Bolivia and Argentina. By buying bonds and providing an alternative source of finance, the Venezuelan leader has greatly lessened the influence of IMF in South America.

Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, said: "What he is saying is that free trade is all right but not necessarily on Washington's terms. Washington's terms make such trade, especially in agriculture, impossible to wisely engage in."

"I call on the prime minister and his ministers to quit," Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun said to the cheers of protesters in downtown Beirut. Speaking on behalf of the opposition, Aoun demanded a national unity government.

A senior opposition source said opposition supporters were imposing an open-ended blockade to the government offices where Siniora and most of his ministers were holed up.

"Tents are being put up for protesters to encircle the government's headquarters to stop movements to and from it until Siniora falls," the source said.

Large numbers of security forces, backed by armored troop carriers, were deployed. Scores of soldiers, using barbed wire and metal barriers, cordoned off the complex housing the government's offices in downtown Beirut.

Siniora and many ministers were inside while meters away, the crowds massed, waving red-and-white Lebanese flags under banners demanding a government of national unity.

Sources close to the organizers estimated the crowd at more than one million, and Hezbollah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Kassem said before the protests the campaign would continue until Siniora's cabinet fell.

"This government will not take Lebanon to the abyss. We have several steps if this government does not respond but I tell them you will not be able to rule Lebanon with an American administration," he told Hezbollah's al-Manar television.

"NEGLIGENT GOVERNMENT"

Hezbollah has been at loggerheads with Siniora's government over what it says was its failure to back the group during the July-August war with Israel.

"The government was negligent during the war. That's why we want a national unity government," said resident Ali Aboud.

"We're here to bring down the government. We, the resistance, don't want any influence from the United States," opposition supporter Najwa Bouhamdan, 41, said.

Siniora said on Thursday his government would not quit. The anti-Syrian politicians who control the cabinet say the Shi'ite Muslim group and its allies want to stage a coup.

The government was weakened last month by the resignation of six opposition ministers and the November 21 assassination of anti-Syrian Christian cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel.

His funeral drew tens of thousands into central Beirut, with many mourners accusing Damascus of being behind the killing.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, the most prominent anti-Syrian leader, urged supporters to remain calm and avoid street confrontations. He said Hezbollah wanted to instate Syrian and Iranian tutelage over the country.

"Very calmly, we will remain steadfast," he told a news conference on Friday. "We will confront (the opposition) calmly. We will remain in our houses and fly the Lebanese flags... We will wait for a month, for two months... and watch them."

Many Lebanese fear protests could turn violent. Tension between Sunnis and Shi'ites is high, as is bad feeling between Christians who support leaders allied to the rival camps.

The anti-Syrian camp accuses the opposition of aiming to bring down the government to derail an international tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, whose killing in 2005 many blame on Damascus.

Syria denied involvement but was forced to pull its troops out of Lebanon in April 2005 by international pressure led by the United States and France and huge anti-Syrian protests.

A U.N. inquiry has implicated Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the killing. Siniora's depleted cabinet approved U.N. plans last week for the Hariri court.

"I do not ignore the complexity of the political situation or our differences, but I am convinced that today we must put an end to our disagreements," Calderon, 44, said in a televised speech after hugging and shaking hands with Fox and swearing in some of his key cabinet members.

The bitterly contested July 2 presidential election has split Mexico, with left-wing parties claiming it was rigged.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a fiery anti-poverty campaigner who narrowly lost the vote, has drawn hundreds of thousands of supporters onto the streets.

Although a top electoral court threw out his fraud claims, Lopez Obrador says he is "legitimate president" and will lead a new protest on Friday in the capital's vast central square.

Conservative and leftist lawmakers punched and shoved each other in an ugly brawl in Congress earlier this week and both sides have camped out there since, with Lopez Obrador's allies insisting they will not let Calderon in for his inauguration.

Despite the threat of fresh violence, Calderon refused to back down and insisted he would go to Congress. He called on his opponents to respect the law and let him be sworn in.

Former U.S. President George Bush and Spain's Crown Prince Felipe are among the few prominent foreign dignitaries here for the inauguration, set for 9:45 a.m. (10:45 a.m. EST/1545 GMT).

IRON WILL

Calderon's election victory bucked a trend of left-wing gains across Latin America in recent years and he will be a key ally of the United States in the region.

A career politician who has an iron will but little charisma, he will also try to push pro-business reforms through Congress and keep a tight rein on government spending even as he promises to cut the vast gap between rich and poor.

Calderon, a Harvard graduate and former energy minister in Fox's government, faces other serious challenges in trying to assert control over an increasingly violent country.

A vicious war between rival drug-smuggling gangs has killed nearly 3,000 people in the last two years, and the popular tourist city of Oaxaca has been wrecked by six months of violent street protests against a state governor.

In Calderon's home state of Michoacan, more than 500 people have been killed this year in a brutal drugs turf war. Severed heads are regularly dumped in the streets and in one case five were tossed onto the dance floor of a seedy nightclub.

Calderon pledged on Thursday to crack down on crime gangs.

"It will be a battle that lasts years. It will cost great effort, economic resources and probably the sacrifice of Mexican lives. But it is a battle we are determined to fight and we are going to win," he said. "To do that, we have to be united."

Mexico won full democracy in 2000, when Fox swept to power in an election that ended seven decades of one-party rule.

The optimism that Fox inspired when he took power six years ago has long since faded. He failed to meet promises of fast growth, millions of jobs and a deal with Washington to help Mexicans living and working illegally in the United States.

Still, the often affable rancher is widely liked and leaves power with approval ratings above 60 percent.

The protest was to be followed by a sit-in near the government offices.
A defiant Mr Siniora insisted his government would not fall, warning in a nationally televised speech last night: "Lebanon's independence is threatened and its democratic system is in danger."

Some of the protesters shouted through loudspeakers, "Siniora out," and, "We want a free government," amid approving roars from the crowd and the deafening sound of Hizbullah revolutionary and nationalist songs.

One placard read: "We want a clean government." This has become the opposition's motto in what some newspapers have called the "great showdown".

Hizbullah and its pro-Syrian allies have arranged to bus in supporters from all over Lebanon and handed out petrol coupons to people in far-flung regions of the country.

Heavily armed soldiers and police closed all roads leading to the sprawling prime minister's headquarters that overlooks the demonstration site. They unfurled barbed wire and placed barricades to prevent any protests from spilling over into the stone-walled historic building.

The organisers have pledged the protest will be peaceful and Hizbullah's security men separated protesters and police, but there are widespread fears protests may turn into street clashes between pro and anti-Syrian factions.

The government also believes Hizbullah supporters could try to storm Mr Siniora's headquarters.

Tension are running high in the country between Sunni Muslims, who generally support the anti-Syrian government; Shias, who lead the pro-Syrian opposition, and Lebanon's Christians, who are divided.

In a clear sign of the divide, the spiritual leader of Lebanon's Sunnis, Grand Mufti Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, gave Friday prayers at the prime minister's headquarters, in a show of support for his fellow Sunni Mr Siniora.

"Fear has gripped the Lebanese," Mr Kabbani said, appealing for the protests to end.

"The constitution guarantees freedom of expression, but trying to overthrow the government in the street is a call for stirring up discord among people, and we will not accept this."

Hizbullah had threatened the demonstrations unless it and its allies obtained a veto-wielding share of the cabinet. Mr Siniora rejected the demand.

The government was weakened last month by the resignation of six opposition ministers and the assassination of the anti-Syrian Christian cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel.

Hizbullah appears to have been emboldened after its resistance to the Israeli invasion saw its support among Shia rocket.