Round One on Sunday

The first round of the French presidential election is on Sunday.

In this final week, there have been 11 polls so far. Averaging them out gives us:

Sarkozy 28.3%
Royal 24.0%
Bayrou 18.6%
Le Pen 13.8%
Others 15.3%

The good news is that Le Pen looks like he will not make the second round, unless the polls are totally stuffed. Also it looks very much like Sarkozy will make the second round. None of the polls have shown a shift on the left to strategically vote for Bayrou over Royal, as he has the better chance of beating Sarkozy. So it should be an old fashioned right vs left Sarkozy vs Royal in two weeks.

The cloest Bayrou has been to Royal this week has been 2% in one poll. The average gap is 5.4% and one poll had a 10% gap.

In terms of the second round, one poll has had a 50/50 split. None have had Royal in front and two have had Sarkozy 7% ahead. The average has been Sarkozy 52.3% and Royal 47.7%