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Approval ratings of France's Hollande and Valls drop - Ifop poll

French President Francois Hollande (L) and Prime Minister Manuel Valls walk together after the weekly cabinet meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris December 22, 2014. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

PARIS (Reuters) - The approval ratings of French President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls, whose Socialist government survived a no-confidence vote last week, dropped in February, an Ifop poll showed. The proportion of those surveyed for Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper who said they were satisfied with Hollande declined to 24 percent from 29 percent in January, when he was praised for his handling of the Islamist militant attacks in Paris. Those saying they were "very dissatisfied" with the president rose by 8 points to 37 percent, the poll published on Sunday showed. However, Hollande's approval rating remains higher than at any time last year, when Ifop data showed it dropped to as low as 13 percent. Pollster YouGov in November put his rating at 12 percent, the worst score for a French president in modern-day polling. Valls' approval rating declined by 7 points in February to 46 percent from 53 percent in January, according to Ifop. This remains above the level for the last six months of 2014, however. Valls was appointed on March 31. The government survived a parliament no-confidence vote called by opposition conservatives on Thursday after it resorted to a decree to bypass broad opposition to a flagship economic reform bill. The challenge was made after Valls on Tuesday resorted to the little-used mechanism to push through a package of economically liberal reforms opposed by the left - a tactic widely denounced as anti-democratic. The Ifop survey was based on the views of 1,972 people gathered via phone and Internet between Feb. 12 and Feb. 21, Ifop said. (Reporting by James Regan; Editing by Alison Williams)