Le Pen sees polls boost amid mass protests, riots

She was already frontrunner before the violence that shook the country during the student protest movement. Now a new poll carried out by the French Institute of Public Opinion in the wake of the riots suggests that Marine Le Pen would win the first round of the presidential election by a wide margin, garnering between 34% and 38% of the vote, depending on which likely rival she'll face. It's an increase of one or two percentage points for the far-right National Rally candidate compared to the last IFOP poll from a week earlier. Perhaps no surprise, given the party's focus on law and order. It's natural, of course, for any party which seeks to emphasise law and order and to inevitably identify threats from outside of France or indeed from immigrants as being behind this kind of disorder to try and capitalise on this, to use these events as a vehicle for pushing her popularity ahead of the elections next year. The IFOP poll also shows Le Pen winning in the second round against any of her potential political opponents. But she would do so with the widest lead against Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The far-left candidate has emerged from last weekend's events as Le Pen's most likely opponent in the run-off, with between 15 and 20% of voting intentions. Hot on his heels is Raphael Glucksmann, polling at between 14 and 16% following his nomination in the Social Democratic primary. and centrist Edouard Philippe garnering between 12 and 16 percent.