France poll: Every presidential candidate rejected by a majority, Le Pen the least rejected

A new poll of French presidential candidates shows every candidate tested is rejected by a majority of French voters, with Marine Le Pen the least rejected of all. The finding comes from the second edition of the monthly rejection barometer by Cluster 17 for Politico, published on Monday 26 October.

The poll asked 3,000 people, on a scale of 0 to 10, how likely they were ever to vote for each candidate, with 0 meaning completely impossible. For Le Pen, 52 percent said voting for her was completely impossible for them, down 4 points from September.

Social democrat Raphaël Glucksmann recorded the same 52 percent rejection, holding roughly his level from the previous month. Former interior minister Bruno Retailleau's rejection also fell 4 points, to 54 percent.

At the top of the rejection ranking remains ecologist Marine Tondelier at 71 percent, up 3 points from the previous month. She is tied at 71 percent by Eric Zemmour, who was not tested in the previous poll.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the second most rejected. In September 66 percent said voting for him was impossible; that has now risen to 69 percent.

Former prime minister Edouard Philippe is rejected by 56 percent. Another former prime minister, Gabriel Attal, rose 3 points to 59 percent. Former president François Hollande was judged impossible to vote for by 61 percent.

Cluster 17 president Jean-Yves Dormagen said the moment was 'rather favourable to the rights', traditional and far right. The survey was carried out from 19 to 22 October, just after the destruction and looting of 17 October.

According to Dormagen, the violence of the weekend of 17 and 18 October 'radicalised a number of people on the right' and reinforced Mélenchon's negative image.

The poll also asked voters their main priority: stopping the RN and its allies, stopping LFI and its allies, or defeating the parties that supported the president. Forty-three percent said stopping the LFI camp was the priority, 30 percent said stopping the RN, and only 14 percent said defeating the 'Macronist' camp.

The survey was conducted among a representative sample of 3,000 people using quotas, online by self-administered questionnaire from 19 to 22 October 2026. The margin of error is between 0.8 and 1.8 points.