French voter support for National Front party leader Marine Le Pen has grown since January, but the right-wing candidate is still likely to lag behind in the second round of the upcoming presidential elections, the latest poll showed on Sunday.
The share of voters looking to back for Le Pen in the first round has increased by two percentage points up to 27 percent, a Kantar-Sofres-Onepoint poll, carried out for Le Figaro newspaper, the LCI channel and the RTL radio station, showed.
This is higher than support offered for to her rivals Emmanuel Macron and The Republicans member Francois Fillon, with 25 and 20 percent of voters intending to cast their vote for the two candidates respectively. Macron has also boosted his chances since January, gaining four percentage points, while Fillon lost two points in the wake of his wife’s fake employment scandal.
Le Pen is then likely to come behind her rivals in the second round, with respective margins of 42 to 58 percent and 45 to 55 percent.
The survey was conducted on February 23-24, sampling 1,005 voters. French presidential elections are due to take place in two rounds on April 23 and May 7.