Hollande’s Rating Drops to New Low Year Before French Presidential Vote

France’s leader Francois Hollande continued this month to lose popularity among the voters, less than a year before the next presidential elections begin in April 2017, a fresh poll has found.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The survey by Elabe, published in Les Echos newspaper on Thursday, showed that Hollande’s ratings dropped by 2 percentage points to reach 16 percent in May, which is a new low.

The recent slide in popularity comes despite a better than expected economic growth rate and a slight rise in employment figures, the outlet said.

"The good news is simply not enough to change the opinion that the French have about the head of state, which is a major trend," Yves-Marie Cann, director of political studies at Elabe, told Les Echos.

Hollande was previously thrown out of end-of-year Top 50 list of most popular French people, published by France’s Journal du Dimanche in December 2015, becoming the least popular president in the history of the Fifth Republic.