Popularity Gap Between Le Pen, Main Rivals for French Presidency Narrows by 1%

Leader of French far-right National Front party Marine Le Pen's chances for getting most votes in the first round of French presidential election have gone down 1 percent in a day, a new poll showed on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – According to the poll conducted by Opinionway, Le Pen is now projected to get 26 percent of the votes, as opposed to 27 percent on Monday, while her two main rivals, independent candidate Emmanuel Macron and The Republicans' nominee Francois Fillon gained one point and are at the moment expected to have 21 percent each.

The forecast for the run-off duel between Macron and Le Pen remained unchanged, with Macron winning at 58 percent against Le Pen's 42, while Fillon secured an additional percentage point and is now projected to win the second round with 57 percent against Le Pen's 43 percent.

The poll showed Socialist Party's candidate Benoit Hamon steadily trailing the three favorites, with 15 percent in the first round, which is a decline by one point from his rating on Monday.

The survey was carried out on February 18-20 among 1535 respondents aged upwards of 18.

The first round of the French presidential election is scheduled for April 23, while the run-off between top two candidates is slated for May 7.