Francois Hollande lengthens odds on August 31 election French President Francois Hollande says he will meet Kevin Rudd. FRENCH President Francois Hollande's declaration that he will meet Kevin Rudd face to face in St Petersburg early in September has further lengthened the odds that the Prime Minister will call an election for August 31. Further complicating the chances of an election being called over the next two days is a North Queensland tour by Governor-General Quentin Bryce. Ms Bryce yesterday began a scheduled tour of several centres in Cape York in far north Queensland, which will take in Lockhart River, Weipa, and Thursday Island. She is not scheduled to return to Canberra until Thursday of next week. With the Constitution requiring the writs for an election to be issued 33 days before polling day and Mr Rudd making appearances in Western Australia yesterday, Ms Bryce's tour means the Prime Minister would face either a cross-continental flight to meet her, breaking tradition and asking the Governor-General for an election via a remote meeting or asking Ms Bryce to curtail her north Queensland trip. The Australian reported this week that Mr Rudd had all but ruled out an August 31 election date, making September 21 the next likely date that a poll could be called. The Prime Minister has made it clear he wants to attend the G20 meeting in St Petersburg, when Australia becomes the chair of the economic summit and prepares to host the leaders' forum in Queensland next year. The French President and Mr Rudd spoke this week and Mr Hollande said "in view of the Australian G20 presidency starting on 1 December," he would meet Mr Rudd outside the G20 summit in St Petersburg on September 5 and 6. Mr Rudd has already ruled out Julia Gillard's nominated date of September 14 because it was too close to the meeting and fell on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. September 21 also presents the last opportunity for the government to call an election before having to recall parliament on August 20 where it would have to implement its changes on the carbon tax and questions over the PNG asylum-seeker deal. If Mr Rudd decided not to call an election September 21, he would likely wait for another two weeks to avoid the AFL and NRL grand finals. This would make the next most likely date October 12 which is three years and two months since the 2010 election. Senior Labor sources said last night they believed Mr Rudd would not call the election this weekend. The government is expected to release an economic statement as early as next week to confront continued falls in government revenues, which will contain spending cuts which have made some MPs nervous about political damage from the measures on the eve of an election.