Thread by @Mij_Europe

Every day brings a new French opinion poll and the presidential election is still 6 months away. Today’s poll is more interesting than most – the second deep dive by @lemondefr, Ispos and Sciences Po into a big, permanent sample of over 16,000 people 1/

lemonde.fr/politique/arti…

On the surface, the results more or less match other recent polls, which are based on much smaller samples. Macron is at 24% in first round voting intentions, the xenophobic pundit Eric Zemmour is second on 16-16.5%, Marine Le Pen third on about 15% 2/

The Le Monde mega-poll – the first since April – also confirms that Xavier Bertrand, president of the northern French region, has the most nationwide support of the contenders in the closed primary of the centre-right party, Les Républicains, on 4 Dec 3/

Bertrand has 13% of 1st round support, Valérie Pécresse, Pres of greater Paris region, 10% & Michel  Barnier, 9%. Barnier is presumed favourite to win the primary but LR party membership has soared from 80,000 to 96,000 in 2 weeks as people “buy” the right to vote 4/

To complete line-up, Le Monde poll confirms the weakness & divisions of the Left – 7 candidates sharing 28% of the 1st round vote, with none more than 10.1% (Yannick Jadot, the green candidate).  But it’s the fine print findings of the mega-poll which are the most interesting 5/

First, Zemmour’s “negatives” are sky high – higher than Le Pen’s. So…70% say that he is not fit to be President – compared to 33% for Macron and 60% for Le Pen; 57%  say he scares them; even 90% of those who support him think that he doesn’t have what it takes to be Pres 6/

Secondly, Zemmour – misogynist as well as racist – has 6% less support amongst women than men. Thirdly, he appeals far less than Le Pen to poorer, blue collar voters. This suggests, say Le Monde, that he will find it hard to take more of Le Pen’s residual support 7/

The poll findings suggest that Zemmour – who has yet to declare but almost certainly will – has a solid base which is taken mostly from Le Pen, partly from the centre right and even (1 point) from Macron. But does this poll suggests there's a ceiling on how far he can go? ENDS