French Centre-Right Set To Retain Power

Frances centre-right government is set to win the forthcoming parliamentary elections with a National Assembly majority of at least 125 seats over the leftist opposition, said an opinion poll made public on Sunday.

The Sofres poll, to be published in Mondays Le Figaro newspaper, showed the government would win between 338 and 370 seats compared to 183-213 seats for the combined left.

The far-right National Front would win from one to three seats.

The opinion poll was released two weeks before the first round of the May 25-June 1 elections.

It was the second poll of the weekend to show the centre-right widening its lead after a series of earlier polls showed the left steadily gaining ground and threatening to oust the government.

 

In terms of voter preference in the first round of the elections, Sofres found 41.5 per cent of voters backed the combined left, just a half a point less than in a similar poll conducted a week earlier.

At the same time, 39.5 per cent said they backed the combined right, compared to 38 per cent a week earlier. Fourteen per cent said they favoured the National Front, against 15 per cent in the earlier poll.

The impact of the small shifts in voter preference is magnified by Frances two-round voting system in single-member constituencies.

Reflecting the volatility of the race and its apparent failure to catch voters interest, 31 per cent of those questioned for the poll said they might still change their minds. Sixty-one per cent said they felt the election outcome would have almost no impact on their lives.

The poll was based on interviews with 1,000 individuals aged 18 and over and was conducted on Friday and Saturday.

A second poll released on Sunday offered an insight into the centre-rights improving fortunes.

The CSA poll for France 3 television found unemployment was

the most important campaign issue and that more voters trusted

the current centre-right government to handle the problem than

the leftist opposition.

It found 98 per cent of voters considered a candidates

approach to Frances 12.8 per cent unemployment to be crucial to

how they would vote.

While 28 per cent thought the leftist opposition would do a

better job of bringing down unemployment, 33 per cent of voters

put their faith in the centre-right.

In a bit of bad news for the government, however, just 35

per cent of voters said they thought Prime Minister and Gaullist

party head Alain Juppe was doing a good job of running its

campaign.

Half of those polled thought Juppe was doing a bad job while

the rest had no opinion.

The poll found that just two out of five voters were

following campaign developments on a daily basis. One in 10 was

not following them at all.