Odoxa poll: Macron leads in French election race ahead of first debate - RTRS

According to the Odoxa poll, Macron keeps the upper edge to win the French presidential election race ahead a first televised debate, Reuters reports.

Key Points:

Macron, a former economy minister running as an independent centrist, would lead first-round voting with 26.5 percent, just ahead of far-right leader Marine Le Pen on 26 percent, before beating her 64-36 in the run-off

Fillon scored 19 percent of first-round voting intentions in the poll, confirming the task faced by the one-time frontrunner to revive a campaign sapped by a fraud investigation.

French voters go the polls on April 23 and May 7 in the two-round election