PARIS - President Chirac's centre right coalition will win a clear majority in parliamentary elections to be held on May 25th and June 1st. the first opinion poll carried out since the elections were announced on Monday night has concluded, writes Lara Marlowe.
The CSA poll, published by Le Pansieti yesterday, predicted the centre right would win 332 seats, while Communists and Socialists would win 221, with the ecologists and extreme right National Front on one each.
The RPR UDF centre right had 464 seats in the parliament dissolved by Mr Chirac on Monday night. But the loss of 132 seats predicted by the poll is less severe than expected.
Other findings show a high degree of scepticism on the part of French voters. Fifty seven per cent of those polled said they found the President's Monday night television appearance "little or not at all convincing". A record 81 per cent of those who responded to the CSA poll said they considered the election call to have been "a political manoeuvre".
Meanwhile, the government has other worries: a railway strike is scheduled to continue until tomorrow and pilots on French domestic flights are to strike tomorrow and Saturday.