Marine Le Pen has increased her lead in polling ahead of the presidential elections in France, scheduled for next April, after appellate judges allowed her to participate in the race for the fourth time, overturning a previous ban on her candidacy.
The far-right “National Rally” candidate Marine Le Pen would receive between 34% and 35.5% of the votes in the first round if it were held this Sunday, according to a poll of 1,503 adults conducted by Elabe for BFM TV and the newspaper La Tribune Dimanche. This marks an increase of 3 percentage points compared to the March poll.
Her closest competitor would be Édouard Philippe, the former centrist prime minister under President Emmanuel Macron, who would garner support of up to 19% in one of the six scenarios tested. The leader of the far-left party “Unbowed France,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon, would place third, except in one scenario where his rival, former centrist prime minister Gabriel Attal, is also running.
According to an online poll conducted on Thursday and Friday, with a margin of error ranging from 1.4 to 3.1 percentage points, Le Pen would defeat all three in the second round, scheduled for May 2. “She is leading among pensioners and in large urban areas, and is neck-and-neck with Édouard Philippe among the working population,” said Bernard Sananès, head of Elabe. “What were previously her weak points are no longer so.”
Court Decision and Le Pen’s Plans
Le Pen announced her candidacy on Tuesday after the Paris Court of Appeal upheld her conviction for misusing European Union funds but reduced her ban on running from five years to 15 months. This 15-month period has already elapsed.
She was also sentenced to one year in prison, which, according to the judges, will not involve actual imprisonment but will likely require her to wear an electronic bracelet for part of the term. Le Pen stated that she is appealing this decision to the country’s Supreme Court and hopes to be elected president.
Source: Bloomberg
