French President Nicolas Sarkozy has cut his Socialist rival's lead to the smallest margin so far in the run up to an April and May presidential election, Reuters cited a poll as showing on Sunday. However, the poll showed that Socialist candidate Francois Hollande would still comfortably beat Sarkozy in a run-off. The president has been capitalising on his central role in Europe's struggle to contain its debt crisis, and gained ground even after announcing plans for an unpopular sales tax hike and after Hollande's campaign took a more aggressive tone. In the first round of the two-stage vote, on April 22, Hollande would win 28 percent of the vote while Sarkozy would secure 26 percent, the poll by IFOP for weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche found. Hollande had a 10-point first-round lead shortly after the Socialist Party chose him as their candidate in October. In the run-off, the poll showed Hollande winning with 54 percent of the vote while Sarkozy would get 46 percent, also the smallest margin registered so far in the election race and down from 20 percentage points in October. Sarkozy hopes that, in the May 6 run-off, he can pick up ballots from people voting for far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and centrist Francois Bayrou in the first round. Pollsters say many of those voters have not decided yet who to pick in the second round. Sarkozy is widely expected to announce in February that he is seeking a second mandate. The president is putting a new focus on spurring growth and reviving French companies' competitiveness. In a political gamble, the government said it would finance a cut in social welfare contributions paid by large companies with an increase in sales tax. Hollande has stepped up his attacks on Sarkozy, accusing him in an open letter of running the economy onto the rocks and being a "president of the privileged". The IFOP poll was based on telephone interviews between Jan. 4 and Jan. 6 with 1,163 people registered to vote. A second poll by Viavoice for newspaper Liberation also found that Hollande's lead had narrowed with 41 percent of those polled wanting him to be France's next president compared with 31 for Sarkozy. The poll marked the smallest margin since August and was down from as much as 18 percentage points in October, after Hollande became the socialist candidate. However, the poll, based on interviews with 2,011 people on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, showed a sharp increase in the number of people wanting the next president to be Bayrou, who closed in on Sarkozy with 26 percent. Bayrou has seen a growing number of politicians on the right rally behind him with former foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, who was one of the founders of Sarkozy's UMP party, announcing on Sunday that he was lending his support to the centrist.
