According to the survey, Le Pen outperformed the other candidates in winning younger votes.
The poll, conducted by Opinion Way, showed support for Le Pen of 25.7 percent of voters aged between 18-34, while Jean-Luc Melenchon and Macron won 24.6 percent and 21.6 percent of that demographic respectively.
Opinion Way found the National Front leader was most popular with female voters with 23.9 percent casting their ballots for the FN front-runner. By contrast, Emmanuel Macron, Le Pen’s opponent in the next round of voting, came in second with women, with only 21.3 percent.
Le Pen meanwhile can heart from Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of his own “France Unsubjugated” movement, who finished a strong fourth in Sunday’s voting. The far-left candidate has refused to endorse her opponent, the former economy minister and Rotschild banker, Macron. Mélenchon, 65, has denounced banks, globalisation and the dictates from Brussels and is also pro-Russian like Le Pen.
On election night, the far-leftist called out the “mediacrats” and “oligarchs” because they were “rejoicing” over those “who approve and want to maintain the current institutions”. Mélenchon had almost doubled his 2012 result.
Mélenchon’s 19.6 percent of the vote in the first round, is triple the score of the mainstream Socialist Party, which has imploded, elevating Mélenchon as the de facto leader of the French left. Large cities like Marseille and Lille – the former boasting a huge Muslim population – voted for Mélenchon.
On Tuesday Le Pen reiterated her pledge to impose a temporary ban on legal immigration to France, wryly calling the French Socialist immigration policies “the best kept secret of our republic”.
She wants to see immigrants’ access to public services limited. “How can we take care of them?” she asked. “How are we going to house them?”
The establishment see both Le Pen and Mélenchon as threats to their political institutions, notably in their opposition to the EU and a Gaullist pledge by Marine to leave NATO. Le Pen and Macron are set to face off in the second round of voting on May 7. Opinion Way’s survey was conducted online April 23 with a .5-1 point margin of uncertainty.