Pollster puts Juppe ahead of Fillon for presidential elections
A new poll conducted in France has suggested that conservative politician Alain Juppe would certainly reach a second round of the presidential election in the country if he replaces under-fire candidate Francois Fillon.
The result of the poll by Kantar Sofres-One Point published on Sunday said Fillon had lost support in the election campaign and would be eliminated from the contest.
The poll said, however, that fellow conservative Juppe would reach the run-off should he replace Fillon.
The survey, conducted between March 2 and March 4 among 1,027 people, showed that Fillon would obtain just 17 percent of the vote, down three percentage points from last month's poll. That would mean that National Front leader Marine Le Pen and independent centrist Emmanuel Macron would contest the run-off on 26 and 25 percent respectively.
The poll said, however, that if Juppe, a former prime minister, were to stand in Fillon's place, he would gain 24.5 percent of the vote against Macron’s 20 percent and would go to the second round with Le Pen, who would gain 27 percent of the votes.
Fillon has come under mounting pressure to quit the race for the presidency as top campaign staff and dozens of MPs have left his team after corruption charges were filed against him. Fillon’s chief campaign spokesman Thierry Solère, who is also a parliament member, became the latest figure among the nearly 100 elected politicians to leave his campaign on Friday.
The troubled candidate is reportedly to be charged over allegations that he paid his British wife hundreds of thousands of euros from taxpayers’ funds for a suspected fake job as his parliamentary assistant. Additionally, he is accused of hiring his children in fake jobs that paid them extremely high salaries while they were students. Fillon has denied the allegations.
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