Hardliner Le Pen leads France race
PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS OF TWO TOP CANDIDATES SHAKEN BY IMPROPRIETY CASES
61% victory margin for Macron, if he contests runoff against Le Pen. 55% for Fillon if he faces off against Le Pen in the second round.
F ar-right leader Marine Le Pen remains favourite to win the first round of France’s presidential election but would lose the May 7 runoff against either the centreright’s Francois Fillon or centrist Emmanuel Macron, two polls showed yesterday.
Both polls were conducted at the start of this week, before Wednesday evening’s announcement that veteran centrist Francois Bayrou would ally with Macron rather than stand himself, a move that could boost the centrist candidate at Fillon’s expense.
The polls’ findings are in line with a slew of other opinion surveys over the last few weeks.
A BVA poll showed Macron beating Le Pen comfortably, by 61 per cent to 39 per cent, in the runoff vote.
If the scandal-tainted Fillon faced off against Le Pen in the second round instead of Macron, he would receive 55 per cent against her 45 per cent, a narrower margin of victory and well short of the 20-point lead polls gave Fillon a few weeks ago.
Scandals
A separate Harris Interactive poll also had Le Pen leading in the April 23 first round, but in the runoff Macron would secure 60 per cent against her 40 per cent. Fillon would get 57 per cent to Le Pen’s 43 per cent, it showed.
The campaigns of both Le Pen, leader of the anti-euro, anti-immigrant National Front, and of Fillon, a former prime minister, have been shaken by investigations into allegations that they misused public money. Both have denied any wrongdoing.
Fillon, 62, was once the election front-runner but is now engulfed in a scandal over salaries paid to his wife and children out of public funds for work they may not have carried out. He says they did do the work for which they were paid.
Le Pen is facing accusations of paying her chief of staff and bodyguard illicitly from European Parliament funds that she is now being pressed by the assembly to repay.
Macron, a 39-year-old exbanker who has never held elected office, could benefit from his cleaner image as well as from Bayrou’s endorsement, which on Wednesday cheered investors nervous about France’s economic prospects under Le Pen.