(Reuters) - France's far-right National Front (FN) will lead first-round voting in departmental elections next March, a poll released on Tuesday said, underlining the emergence of the party as a major force in French politics.
A survey by pollster Odoxa found the FN would win 28 percent of the vote, ahead of the conservative UMP on 25 percent and the ruling Socialist Party on 17 percent, if the vote in France's 101 departments were held now. That would be almost double what it scored in the first round of the last such elections in 2011.