French far-right leader Marine Le Pen looks set to lose to far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon in parliamentary elections next month, dealing a blow to the National Front’s hopes for a strong national score, an opinion poll published yesterday showed.
The rivals are running head-to-head in Ms Le Pen’s political backyard, the northern working-class town of Henin-Beaumont, in national elections where she hopes momentum gained in the presidential vote will deliver the party its first parliamentary seat.
An Ifop-Fiducial poll showed Ms Le Pen would win the June 10th first round with 34 per cent of the votes against 29 per cent for Mr Melenchon, but would be beaten 55-45 per cent by Mr Melenchon in the June 17th second round.
Ms Le Pen played down the findings. “The polling institutes should be a bit more modest, in particular Ifop, which forecast that Melenchon and I would have an equal score in the presidential election, while I ended up with 18 per cent and he with 11. Let’s wait for the election,” she told France 3 television. Not winning the parliamentary seat on her home turf would be a humiliation for Ms Le Pen, who came third in the first round of presidential elections in April, behind winner François Hollande and his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy. – (Reuters)