Polls show French far-right Le Pen winning election first round, but losing knockout

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

WORLD NEWS | Thu Feb 9, 2017 | 4:29am EST

Polls show French far-right Le Pen winning election first round, but losing knockout

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen looks set to win the first round of France's presidential election in April, according to a new survey issued on Thursday, with other polls indicating she will lose the runoff to centrist Emmanuel Macron.

Harris Interactive said a poll of voting intentions for the April 23 first round indicated that Le Pen, who heads the anti-immigrant and anti-EU National Front, would get 24 percent, with Macron taking 21 percent.

Francois Fillon, a conservative who was favorite to win election only two weeks ago but has seen his campaign damaged by scandal, trailed on 19 percent.

Only the top two candidates go through to the May 7 runoff.

The poll assumed, however, that centrist Francois Bayrou would run and would pick up 5 percent in the first round.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-poll-idUSKBN15O09C

[HoneyBadger]

1. I like this election system

Minimal electoral college, minimal polling and minimal 2 party influence per Wikipedia