Paris expects to be high in the running when voting reaches its final stages tonight.
Its bid team believes it has the facilities, experience and competence.
'We are full of confidence,' said Noel de Saint-Pulgent, director-general of the bid committee. 'It will be a very close race. We have our chance. Some delegates make up their minds at the last minute.'
However, Paris' biggest handicap is that the 2004 summer Games are in Athens and 2006 winter Games are in Turin, leading many IOC members to feel it would be unfair to give the Olympics to another European city, and that the moment had come to award it instead to the world's most populous country.
In addition, several other European cities, including London, Hamburg and Moscow, want to bid for the 2012 Games, giving delegates from those countries a good reason to vote elsewhere.
Initially, Paris concentrated lobbying on its own merits but as its intelligence reports showed Beijing to be a clear leader, it switched to a more aggressive and critical strategy.