New polls predict Le Pen victory in French presidential elections
Recent opinion polls show Marine Le Pen could win the 2027 French presidential election after an appeals court softened her sentence for misuse of EU funds.
France's appeals court this week reduced Marine Le Pen's ban from running for office, which was imposed by a lower court for misusing European Parliament funds. This opened the way for her to participate in the 2027 presidential race.
A poll by the Ifop institute, commissioned by LCI and Le Figaro, indicates that Le Pen would win the first round by a large margin and outperform her main rivals in the second round. If she faced former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe in the run-off, she would get 54% of the vote against Philippe's 46%. She also beats former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal by 10 percentage points and far-left populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon by a huge margin.
Another poll, ordered by M6 and RTL, also shows Le Pen winning in the second round, but with a significantly smaller lead.
The Telegraph notes that the conviction has rather strengthened than weakened Le Pen's support. Ifop attributes her unprecedented popularity to several factors: clarity that she will be the right-wing populist candidate, and growing support among young voters, entrepreneurs, and moderate right-wing voters.
