FRANCE: Opinion polls before tomorrow's first round of the French legislative election predict an absolute majority for President Jacques Chirac's UMP. According to the IPSOS polling institute for Le Figaro, the centre-right will win 40 per cent of the vote; the socialists, communists and greens 36 per cent; and the extreme right-wing National Front (FN) 12 per cent.
In the second round on June 16th, this would mean between 339 and 381 seats for the centre-right, between 174 and 216 seats for the left, and at most four seats for the FN.
A second poll, for Le Parisien, gave an even better prognosis for the centre-right, attributing between 350 and 410 seats to parties loyal to Mr Chirac, between 140 and 196 to the left and at most two to the FN. But pollsters stressed that their surveys are like polaroid snapshots of a fast-changing situation. French polling institutes have been criticised for failing to foresee Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen's victory over Mr Lionel Jospin on April 21st.
Fifty-one per cent of those polled by IPSOS said a new "cohabitation" between a right-wing president and a left-wing prime minister must be avoided. A quarter of left-wing voters do not want another cohabitation.
