France's 39-year-old centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron might defeat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in French presidential runoff with 58 percent of the vote versus 42 percent, according to a Figaro/LCI poll on Sunday.The pollsters said Le Pen will lead in the first round with 27 percent of the vote, up 2 percent from the previous poll, closely followed by Macron with 25 percent, up 4 percentage points from last poll.
In a run-off contest between the two top candidates, Macron would beat Le Pen easily 61 percent to 39 percent, the survey of 920 voters suggested.
France heads to the polls for the two-stage election on April 23 and May 7, with campaigning marked by a series of surprises that have made forecasting extremely hazardous.
Another poll by the Kantar Sofres Onepoint group is set to be published later Sunday.
Macron appears to be benefiting from a number of factors over the last week, notably an alliance with fellow centrist and political veteran Francois Bayrou who opted against running a rival campaign last week.
Macron, who started his own political movement last April, has also started giving more detail about his pro-business, pro-European platform ahead of the official launch of his programme on Thursday.
His rivals, Le Pen and rightwing Republicans party candidate Francois Fillon, have also become more deeply embroiled in legal problems.
Both are accused of misusing public money by using fake parliamentary aides, while Le Pen faces a separate investigation into the funding of election campaigns in 2014 and 2015.
They deny wrongdoing and have sought to portray the investigations as politically motivated, saying they should be delayed or abandoned altogether.
"Imagine that during the presidential campaign you can't investigate?" Socialist Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday, ruling out any suspension of the investigations.
"There is no law allowing a suspension like that. What would be the reason? In the name of what exception? In my opinion, nothing could justify it."
The independence and neutrality of the justice system is under scrutiny ahead of the vote and amid high-profile probes into Fillon and Le Pen.
Urvoas said that in the past judges had sometimes taken into account the electoral calendar when fixing trial dates, but that judicial investigations had never been put on ice.