Bloomberg French Poll of Polls: Le Pen’s Party Boosts Lead

(Bloomberg) -- Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally has continued to widen its lead ahead of the first round of France’s snap legislative election on Sunday while President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party and its allies have stalled in third place, according to Bloomberg’s poll of polls.

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The National Rally has risen by 0.5 point to 35.8% in Bloomberg’s composite. A leftist alliance called the New Popular Front, bringing together Socialists, Communists, Greens and the far-left France Unbowed, is second on 28.6%, up 0.2 point. Macron’s group is little changed on 20.5%.

Macron dissolved the National Assembly earlier this month and called a snap legislative vote after his group was trounced in European Parliament elections. The first round will be held on June 30, with a second on July 7.

While the two-step ballot makes seat predictions tricky, projections by polling companies show the National Rally and its allies are on track to become the biggest group in the lower house of parliament, though short of the 289 lawmakers needed to form an absolute majority.

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Leaders from the three biggest political groups clashed late on Tuesday in their first televised debate on everything from retirement and taxes to immigration as they sought to convince voters that they can be trusted to run Europe’s second-biggest economy.

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

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