Marine Le Pen's poll position

Marine Le Pen is more popular than Sarkozy, according to a Le Parisian poll. Photograph: Jacques Brinon/Associated Press We the French have a tricky relationship with polls: we're too passionate about them. Take this much talked-about poll that journalists here call "the" poll. It revealed that the infamous Front National's (FN) president Marine Le Pen would lead in the first round of the next presidential election – well, if said election took place last weekend. Published on Sunday in Le Parisien, it claimed that 23% of its respondents said – via the internet – that they would vote for Le Pen in 2012. Only 21% were behind French president Nicolas Sarkozy and the socialist party's Martine Aubry (they scored evenly).Yes, we love polls. We now have about 18 pollsters (we only had four a few years ago) churning out no fewer than 20 polls a week. We are Europe's champions of polls, according to a French deputy that belittled the one on Sunday. They have become actual news in an outlandish political landscape that feels more and more like a cheap sci-fi movie. Le Pen is, after all, the only one who has officially announced she is running for president.

Via http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/08/france-election-marine-le-pen-poll