Le Pen gains support but Macron still seen winning

PARIS: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen gained some support in the first opinion poll to be held entirely after the Paris attack, but centrist Emmanuel Macron was still seen beating her on Sunday and defeating her in a runoff two weeks later. In an Odoxa poll for Le Point published on Friday, Macron was seen winning the first round with 24.5 per cent of the votes, down 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous poll. Le Pen took the second place in the poll with 23 per cent, up 1 point. Conservative Francois Fillon and Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon were both down 0.5 points to 19 per cent, hence failing to qualify for the May 7 runoff. Macron “now has good chances to come first in the first round and is therefore unlikely to be eliminated,” Odoxa’s Gael Sliman said in a note accompanying the poll. Macron was seen defeating Le Pen comfortably in the second round runoff of the election. — Reuters