Some French see IMF Managing Director as next President – poll

PanARMENIAN.Net - French President Nicolas Sarkozy would lose out to the Socialists but beat the far-right in the second round of next year's presidential election, an opinion poll said on Tuesday, April 26.

The Socialists, who have yet to choose a candidate ahead of the May 2012 vote, would win hands-down in a run-off against Sarkozy regardless of who gets the party nomination, according to the survey conducted by pollster Ifop.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the most popular left-wing candidate, drawing 61 percent of the final vote against Sarkozy's 39 percent. Former Socialist leader Francois Hollande would win 56 percent to Sarkozy's 44 and current party chief Martine Aubry would take 55 percent of the final vote, the poll showed.

The leader of the far-right National Front, Marine Le Pen, would lose to both left and right if she got through to the final round, taking 27 percent of the vote against Sarkozy's 73 and 25 percent against Strauss-Kahn.

The poll for Paris Match magazine and Europe 1 radio was carried out between April 20 and 21 on a sample of 917 people, Reuters reported.

Sarkozy's popularity ratings have fallen to all-time lows after a series of ministerial scandals and the government's perceived failure to tackle stubbornly high unemployment in the post-crisis recovery.

Recent polls have shown the far-right snapping hard at the heels of Sarkozy's ruling centre-right UMP party as the president's popularity wanes.

However, the government's adoption of a more hard-lined stance on immigration, aimed at draining support from the National Front, is alienating leftist voters who accuse the UMP of stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment.

Strauss-Kahn has yet to reveal whether he will run in the presidential race, but all recent polls have shown him to be the preferred candidate for the left.