France's Fillon seen winning conservatives' primaries: poll

Francois Fillon, former French prime minister and member of Les Republicains political party, attends a rally as he campaigns in the second round for the French center-right presidential primary election in Lyon, France, November 22, 2016. REUTERS/Robert Pratta


PARIS French former prime minister Francois Fillon is set to win the conservative nomination for next year's presidential election by a wide margin, an Ifop-Fiducial poll forecast ahead of a primaries' run-off vote on Sunday.


Fillon unexpectedly topped the first round last Sunday.


He is set to win the second round with 65 percent of votes versus 35 percent for Alain Juppe, another ex-prime minister who had for months been ahead in polls, the Ifop-Fiducial survey showed.


Anyone can take part in the primaries independently of whether they are members of the Les Republicains conservative party or not.


Some 75 percent of sympathizers of Les Republicains will vote for Fillon, and 84 percent of those sympathizers of the far-right National Front party who intend to take part in the vote will also back Fillon, the poll showed.


Juppe is set to get 83 percent of the votes of left-wing voters who will go to the polling stations, and 66 percent of the votes of centrist parties' sympathizers, the poll said.


Some 6,901 people were interviewed on Nov 21-23 for the iTELE, Paris Match and Sud Radio poll. The results only take into account the 619 people surveyed who said they were certain to go and vote this Sunday.


(Reporting by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Andrew Callus)

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