PARIS – French presidential hopeful François Hollande extended his lead during the summer over rivals in the race to win the Socialist party’s nomination for the 2012 presidential election campaign, a poll showed yesterday.
The six candidates competing for the Socialist ticket were all in La Rochelle in western France for the party congress over the weekend, looking to win sympathisers less than six weeks before voters across the country pick their favourite.
Mr Hollande, who has never held a ministerial post and is relatively unknown internationally, became the leading Socialist candidate for the two-round election next April and May after former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested.
He has consistently led the polls against his closest rival, former party chief Martine Aubry, and 2007 candidate Ségolène Royal, while according to a poll on August 24th, he would edge out incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy in the election run-off.
In a survey of about 2,000 people carried out between August 23rd and 26th, his support among left-wing voters rose to 41 per cent, up 4 percentage points from June, compared with 31 per cent for Ms Aubry and just 13 per cent for Ms Royal.
That poll showed Mr Hollande would beat Ms Aubry with 55 per cent of voter support in the second round of the Socialist Party primaries, which are due to take place on October 9th and 16th.
– (Reuters)