2017 French Presidential Election

[Beet]

The far-right candidate may even have the backing of more than 30 per cent of voters ahead of the presidential elections in late April and May, it has been claimed.
In an article for French newspaper Le Figaro, columnist Ivan Rioufol says the statistics comes from 'hidden surveys'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4335534/Is-Marine-Le-Pen-actually-miles-ahead-French-polls.html

Somehow I knew the Daily Mail comments would be pro-Le Pen.

[Beet]

(Surely Hamon is becoming more of a non-factor & he will collapse probably - Would Melenchon gain if Hamon withdraws because some voters may shift to Macron as well

I don't think Hamon can withdraw, as it would relinquish the hold his faction in the PS finally have over the party. They can blame the result on Hollande. While its imploding its still a usefull tool for the legislatives, as discussed previously.   

Add to that, if Hamon withdraws now, then the PS will obviously miss the 5% threshold to have their campaign costs refunded. So there is obviously a huge financial incentive to stay in.

Exactly. And as most of the leadership (and probably Harmon himself) would prefer Macron over Melenchon, there would be no incentive to do that.

If Hamon was doing well people would have pointed it as more proof "Boinie woulda won!!$!"

[Beet]

Similarly the polls in the US has Clinton winning by 3% and she won the popular vote by 2%.

And France has no Electoral College, to boot.

Sure, California helped the national polls save face. But France doesn't have any California's. The whole place is one giant Midwest. So it's more akin to Brexit. The far right always under polls in Europe. Le Pen will win for sure.

[Beet]

Shooting on the Champs-Elysées, one policeman dead, one suspect killed.

It's like the Islamists want the far right to win... oh yes it gives them their holy war. Plus, there are always riots right before a far right winger is up for election, so I expect plenty of those in the next month.