Poll shows Le Pen beating Hollande in presidential run-off

Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right National Front, would beat struggling incumbent Francois Hollande in a run-off election for the French presidency, according to a new poll.

The unprecedented finding came as a new blow to Mr Hollande at the end of a week in which he suffered a cascade of bad news, including the publication of a lacerating book by Valerie Trierweiler, his former partner.

A poll for Ifop published on Friday showed that Ms Le Pen would beat Mr Hollande by 54-46 per cent if they were matched today in the decisive second round of the presidential election. The next election is due in 2017.

The survey confirmed an earlier poll showing Ms Le Pen leading all other contenders of left and right in the first round. But it was the first time she had been shown ahead of a mainstream candidate in the second round - a scenario regarded to date as unrealistic.

The Ifop poll followed another on Friday by SNS-Sofres giving Mr Hollande an all-time low approval rating of just 13 per cent.

The French president attempted to reassert his authority in a government reshuffle late last month by ejecting leftwing opponents of his recent pro-business policy turn. But, so far, his only reward has been further turmoil. "Never has a head of state been so devalued," wrote Liberation, the leftist newspaper.

The most personally wounding blow this week came from the book by Valerie Trierweiler, Mr Hollande's former partner, called Merci pour ce moment (Thanks for the moment).

It attacked Mr Hollande for allegedly lying to her over his infidelity with actress Julie Gayet, being two-faced ("the king of double speak") and joking derisively about the poor.

Details of how Mr Hollande tried to seize sleeping pills from his traumatised partner in a bedroom tussle on the day news broke of his affair and Ms Trierweiler's recounting of his subsequent torrent of text messages trying to win her back were excruciating enough.

But the most damaging revelation politically was the allegation about his attitude to the poor, for a man who once said he did not like the rich. "This man of the left calls (the poor) in private les sans-dents (the toothless) - he's very proud of his funny crack," Ms Trierweiler wrote.

The mocking phrase has instantly been thrown back at Mr Hollande on social media, with new groups of activists being formed under the banner of Les sans-dents.

It is set to become a marker of the Hollande presidency in the same way Nicolas Sarkozy, his predecessor, suffered from his snarled comment to a hostile bystander at a public event: "Casse-toi, pauvre con." (roughly translated: "Piss off, you little creep.")

Leading government and socialist figures rushed to defend Mr Hollande, including Segolene Royal, ecology minister and mother of his four children whom he left for Ms Trierweiler in 2007. "It's nonsense," Ms Royal said.

But the damage is done. Ms Trierweiler's book is flying off the shelves, three times faster than the erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey when it was first published, according to Fnac, the retail chain.

Mr Hollande's 13 per cent approval rating compared with the 20 per cent floor hit during his term by Mr Sarkozy, who was shown by the Ifop poll beating Ms Le Pen in a presidential vote by 60-40 per cent.

Mr Hollande has little choice but to try to tough out his demoralising slump in the hope that his reform policies will finally revive the stalled economy, the root source of his problems. But his opponents scent blood.

"Inexorably one senses the moment is coming when Francois Hollande finds himself completely paralysed," commented the rightwing daily Le Figaro, which published the latest polls.

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