FAR-RIGHT parties in Sweden and the Czech Republic experienced a poll bounce this week as French populist leader Marine Le Pen extended her lead ahead of the country’s presidential election.
A slew of polls released this week provided little evidence that the populist revolution gripping Europe is losing momentum, with establishment parties like Angela Merkel’s CDU continuing to struggle.
GETTY
Marine Le Pen is leading the polls in France
In the Czech Republic, which is locked in a battle with Brussels over its migration quota policy, the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) scored a record high.
GETTY
The Swedish Democrats’ rating also recovered slightly
GETTY
The Five Star Movement continues to battle at the top of the polls in Italy
Elsewhere, in Sweden the nationalist Swedish Democrats party showed some signs of recovery from a recent poll slump, climbing to 17 per cent support in a Sifo survey.
The party is the third largest in the country, which will hold elections in 2018, although it is still polling well below its highest figure of 25 per cent in November last year
The latest polls from Italy showed the eurosceptic Five Star Movement still tying neck-and-neck with the ruling socialists on 30 per cent each as the country gears up for the possibility of a snap election.
And Marine Le Pen, the Front National leader, extended her lead as the country’s most popular single candidate to five points according to an Ifop survey released yesterday.
The populist leader, a shock candidate for the French presidency, recorded 26 per cent of support from voters compared to 21 per cent for centrist Emmanuel Macron and just 18 per cent for scandal-hit conservative Francois Fillon.
However, polls have consistently shown that whilst Ms Le Pen is expected to win the first round of the French election she is likely to be comprehensively defeated in the final vote.
Leave a Reply