Incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron retains the lead in the presidential race three months before the election date.
It outperforms its closest competitors by 10 percentage points, writes RFI citing the results of a survey conducted Jan. 14-17 by Ipsos-Sopra Steria.
If the first round of elections were held next Sunday, then the incumbent French president would receive 25% of the vote. His closest rivals, National Rally leader Marine Le Pen and right-wing Republican candidate Valerie Pecres, each won 15.5% of the vote.
In the second round, according to the same poll, Macron would have defeated Marine Le Pen by 57% to 43% of the vote. If the representative of the “Republicans” entered the second round, the incumbent could count on 54% of the vote against 46% for Pecres.
Another participant in the presidential race, far-right publicist Eric Zemmour, so far has the support of only 13% of voters and is fourth in the ranking of contenders for the presidency.
Left-wing politicians have little chance of reaching the second round. 8% of voters are ready to vote for the leader of the extreme left “Rebellious France” Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the candidate from the “greens” Yannick Jadot would receive only 7% of the votes, the former Minister of Justice Christian Tobira – 5%, and the head of Paris Anne Hidalgo – 3.5 % of votes.
The first round of presidential elections will be held in France on April 10. If during the voting none of the candidates receives more than 50% of the votes, then the second round of elections will be held in two weeks – on April 24. 14 candidates have already announced their intention to participate in the elections. The current head of state Emmanuel Macron has not yet officially announced his candidacy.
