General

Le Pen leads in new French poll

Buzz around far right leader suggests a repeat of 2002 election

A new French poll has the leader of the country’s largest far-right party, the Front National, leading her two rivals in the mainstream parties in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election. The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive for daily newspaper Le Parisien, shows Marine Le Pen (who took over from her father Jean-Marie in January) leading the race with 23 per cent support, while President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Socialist Party’s Martine Aubry are each at 21 per cent. The poll’s credibility has come under fire—most notably for its exclusion of International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the likely Socialist candidate rather than Aubry—but it hints at a repeat of the 2002 election, when Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the run-off portion of the election before losing to Jacques Chirac.

France 24

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