Latest French presidential polling has one-time odds-favourite Francois Fillon failing to make the final two
As a Macron Backer I’d like to see other surveys showing same picture
There’s no doubt what’s what’s become known as Penelopegate is having a big impact on assessments about who is going to win. The right-wing French Republican candidate has been dominating there polls and betting ever since he won the nomination in November but over the past few days there’s been a huge turnaround.
It’s now being suggested that Fillon is damaged goods and might have to be replaced.
What I find amazing is that French political scandals are generally about money – not sex.
This is how the BBC’s Hugh Schofield is reporting it:
“”There is a growing feeling that the party needs to cut off the gangrene before it spreads,” the political columnist at Les Echos newspaper, Cecile Cornudet, told me.
Because the damage is already visible. Today Les Echos has an opinion poll which for the first time shows Francois Fillon failing to make it to round two of the presidential election in April-May.
The political advantage falls to two people: Marine Le Pen for the Front National, of course, for whom the scandal is more grist to the populist mill.
But more importantly perhaps, the main beneficiary is the modernising former minister Emmanuel Macron.In two different scenarios posited by Les Echos (the presence or absence of another centrist candidate Francois Bayrou) Emmanuel Macron knocks Mr Fillon into third place..”.
This is only one poll. The big question is whether others will follow.
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