Marine Le Pen extends lead in French election poll after court ruling

PARIS – Marine Le Pen extended her lead in a voter preference poll ahead of next April’s French presidential election after appeal judges cleared her to enter the race for a fourth time by shortening a previous ban on her standing.

The far-right National Rally candidate would get between 34 per cent and 35.5 per cent of the vote in the first round if it were to take place on July 12, according to the poll of 1,503 adults by Elabe for BFM TV and La Tribune Dimanche newspaper.

That’s a gain of 3 points from a survey in March.

Her closest rival would be Edouard Philippe, a former centrist prime minister under President Emmanuel Macron, who was favoured by as many as 19 per cent in one of six scenarios tested.

Far-left France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Melenchon would trail him in third, except in one line-up where rival centrist former premier Gabriel Attal also is in the running.

Le Pen would beat all three in the runoff, according to the online poll conducted on July 9 and July 10 with a margin of error of between 1.4 and 3.1 percentage points.

The runoff is on May 2.

“She’s in the lead among retirees and in major urban areas, and is neck and neck with Edouard Philippe among the working population,” said Bernard Sananes, head of Elabe. “What used to be her areas of weakness are no longer.”

Le Pen declared her candidacy on July 14 after the Paris court of appeals upheld her conviction for embezzling European Union funds but reduced a ban on her standing for election from five years to 15 months – time that has already expired.

She was also handed a one-year jail term that judges said wouldn’t involve prison but would likely require wearing an electronic tag for part of it.

She said she is appealing to the country’s top court and has calculated that she will be in a position to be elected president. BLOOMBERG