A poll conducted just after the the November 13 Paris shootings has put far-right candidate Marion Maréchal Le Pen well in the lead to win the presidency of the southern Provence-Alpes-Cote-d'Azur region (PACA) in December's regional elections, reports FRANCE 24.
Marion Maréchal Le Pen, granddaughter of National Front (FN) founder Jean-Marie Le Pen and the youngest sitting member of the National Assembly, will get 40% of the ballot in a first round of the vote, according to the Ipsos poll (elections in France go to a second round if no candidate gets more than 50% in the first round).
Just behind her is former minister and current Nice mayor Christian Estrosi, leading the centre-right coalition of The Republicans-UDI-MoDem, which got 30% in the first round and 34% in the second, according to the poll.
Hollande's Socialist party candidate Christophe Castaner polled just 25% in the second round.
According to Jean-Yves Camus, associate researcher at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS) and expert on the French far right, 25-year-old Maréchal Le Pen's anti-immigrant and anti-Islam message resonates with the public in urban areas such as Nice “which is a big transit point for refugees entering France through Italy”.
Her popularity reflects a collapse in support for the mainstream conservative opposition, which has foundered amid President François Hollande's robust response to the shootings, Camus told FRANCE 24.
The Socialist candidate Castaner told RTL radio he was “astonished” at the poor results for Christian Estrosi, a former minister and member of former president Nicolas Sarkozy's “The Republicans” party.