Poll Shows Chirac Would Struggle In 2007 Runoff
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PARIS — President Chirac would struggle to reach the runoff of 2007 elections were he to represent the Union for a Popular Movement Party, instead of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, a poll showed.
Mr. Chirac, 73, would get 15% of the first-round vote, level with the anti-immigration National Front party leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and the Union for a French Democracy party leader, Francois Bayrou, the Ifop/Paris Match poll showed yesterday. The Socialist Party candidate, Segolene Royal, would get 33% of the vote. Ms. Royal would trounce Mr. Chirac 59% to 41% in the event of a runoff between the two, the poll showed.
“That’s a double red light for the President,” a consultant for Ifop and research director at the Paris-based National Foundation of Political Science, Jean-Luc Parodi, said in the e-mailed statement.
The French president, first elected in 1995, has said he’ll announce whether he’ll seek a third term in the first quarter. His wife, Bernadette, last week told Le Nouvel Observateur magazine that the 73-year-old incumbent may seek reelection.
Were Mr. Sarkozy rather than Mr. Chirac to represent the governing party in the first round, he would get 29% of the votes, tied for first place with Ms. Royal, the Ifop poll showed. In the second round, Ms. Royal would go on to win 51% to 49%, according to the poll. In last month’s poll, Mr. Sarkozy was seen winning over Ms. Royal 53% to 47%.
Ms. Royal is benefiting from her November 16 nomination by members of the Socialist Party, Mr. Parodi wrote. “The rebound is clear.”
In a BVA survey published yesterday, Ms. Royal’s lead over Mr. Sarkozy was 42% against 36%, while 22% were undecided.
The first round of the election is set for April 22 and the runoff May 6. Mr. Sarkozy, 51, currently faces no opposition within the governing UMP Party, which is due to nominate its candidate on January 14.
Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, who has hinted that she may run without the UMP Party’s endorsement, wrote a letter to Mr. Sarkozy to complain that the party isn’t sufficiently open to debate, Le Parisien newspaper reported yesterday.
