French president Nicolas Sarkozy overtook Socialist challenger François Hollande for the first time today in an opinion poll on the first round of France's April-May election after attacking the European Union's trade and immigration policies.
The conservative incumbent was still shown losing to Mr Hollande in a second-round runoff, but by a narrower margin.
Mr Sarkozy's poll boost came as far-right leader Marine Le Pen, ranked third in polls, said she had secured the 500 official sponsors needed to enter the presidential contest.
Candidates have until Friday to obtain the requisite backing of 500 elected officials to compete in the April 22nd first round, after which the two front runners face off in a May 6th runoff. A failure by Ms Le Pen to gather enough signatures could have rocked expectations, given her 16 per cent support level.
In a morale boost for Mr Sarkozy, who has trailed Mr Hollande in polls for months, an Ifop/Fiducial survey put his first-round score at 28.5 per cent, up from 27 per cent at the end of February and overtaking Mr Hollande, whose score slipped to 27 per cent from 28.5 per cent previously.
The poll gave Mr Hollande 54.5 per cent of the second-round vote to the French president's 45.5 per cent, a narrower lead as Mr Hollande lost two percentage points and Mr Sarkozy gained two.
The election is a duel between Mr Sarkozy, who promises tighter immigration controls, structural economic reforms and policy referendums, and Mr Hollande, who is running on a tax-and-spend programme while also promising to cut the budget deficit.
The poll was taken after Mr Sarkozy told his biggest rally yet on Sunday that he would erect unilateral barriers to trade and immigration unless the European Union takes tougher stands.Seeking to breathe new life into his campaign, Mr Sarkozy said Europe should have a law, modelled on the Buy American Act, requiring governments to buy European-made products.
He also threatened to pull France out of Europe's Schengen open-borders zone unless progress is made on controlling immigration flows.
Mr Hollande said the president's move was a sign the incumbent was running out of inspiration. "He will try anything," the Socialist said in a France 3 television interview yesterday.
Reuters