POLL: Anti-EU Marine Le Pen Takes Lead in France's Presidential Election

Marine Le Pen has overtaken centre-right candidate François Fillon to be the frontrunner in France’s presidential election, according to the latest poll by Ifop-Fiducial.

Le Pen is leading the race for the first time in the campaign as the Republicans candidate Fillon struggles with working class voters who supported Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012.

The Front National icon is currently attracting between 26 per cent and 26.5 per cent of the vote while Fillon, who became the candidate of the right and centre having battled through a primary, oscillates between 24 per cent and 25 per cent, reports Paris Match.

Support for the Republicans’s candidate is eroding among voters who opted for Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, and also people in France who are less well off, and sceptical of his free marketeer reform ambitions. In vital categories, Fillon faces setbacks in support with minus 12 points among workers (8 per cent) and minus 11 among the wider middle and lower middle class (11 per cent).

However, even if Le Pen wins the first round in April, polls published Tuesday show she could be defeated by 64 per cent to 36 per cent in the subsequent election runoff. According to the survey, independent candidate Emmanuel Macron, a former economy minister in France, would win 17 to 20 per cent of the vote in the first round.

National Front leader Marine Le Pen said French banks have refused to meet with her to discuss the possibility of financing her presidential campaign.

All the other candidates have received funding from French banks, Le Pen said in an interview on France 2 television.

“The fact that the banks won’t lend to us, playing a political role, poses a real problem for democracy,” she said. “It’s the banks who decide who can run and who can’t.”