Polls Continue To Show Sarkozy Recovery Ahead Of Election
First Published Tuesday, 20th March 2012 10:48 am - © 2012 Dow Jones
PARIS -(Dow Jones)- French President Nicolas Sarkozy is rebounding in opinion polls, a survey showed Tuesday, confirming the race against his key rival and poll-leader Francois Hollande is becoming tighter.
According to an Ipsos survey of 950 people conducted on March 16 and 17, Sarkozy would take 27.5% of the vote in the first round of the election, up 2.5 points from the previous survey at the beginning of March. Meanwhile, the voting intentions for socialist candidate Francois Hollande fell one point to 28.5%.
While Hollande is still shown winning the second round runoff, the margin is narrowing, as other recent surveys have shown. According to the Ipsos poll, Hollande would win with 56% of votes in the second round, down from 58%.
The publication of the poll comes as official campaigning has been interrupted by the shooting of three Jewish school children and an adult in the southern French city of Toulouse on Monday. Sarkozy said Monday that he would suspend his election campaign, at least until the burial of three soldiers killed by the same weapon last week. Hollande has also said he is suspending his campaign.
The Ipsos poll, which was carried out before the Toulouse murders, also confirms that far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon is making sharp progress in the polls for the first round. Voting intentions for the Left Front candidate rose to 11.5% from 9.5%.
The only other candidate, apart from Hollande, to record a fall in voting intentions in the first round was far-right Front National candidate Marine Le Pen, down to 15% from 17.5%.
-By William Horobin, Dow Jones Newswires, +33 1 4017 1737;
