French Presidential Election: New Polls Shows Fillon Beating Le Pen

A new poll released this month has indicated that French conservative Francois Fillon will beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen by 63 percent to 37 percent if they meet head to head in a presidential election runoff in May. The poll, which has a margin of error of 3.3 percent, was conducted by Internet from 6 – 8 January and was based on a sample of 946 people registered to vote.

The POP 2017 poll is in line with the findings of other surveys, which show Fillon losing momentum with his share of the vote in the first round, falling to 24 percent from as much as 27.5 percent a month ago. The poll showed him trailing National Front (FN) leader Le Pen by one or two percentage points in the first-round of the vote, which will take place on 23 April, but picking up enough votes from other defeated candidates, including from centrists among the Socialists, to comfortably defeat her in the 7 May runoff vote.

Furthermore, the poll also appeared to confirm that Emmanuel Macron, a popular former economy minister under Socialist President Francois Hollande who is running as an independent, might still be in a position to pull off a surprise. The poll has indicated that Macron is seen as coming in third place in the first round, with 16 – 20 percent of the vote, depending on which candidate the Socialists select for the party ticket in their primaries due to take place later this month. However he may be able to count on scooping up much of the 5 percent of the votes that the poll attributed to centrist Francois Bayrou if the latter decides not to run. Bayrou has social policies that are close to those of Macron and so his supporters may throw their weight behind the former investment banker. Bayrou has not yet disclosed whether he will run.