Hollande extends lead in French president race

Socialist party candidate Francois Hollande has extended his lead over incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in the race to become France's next president, a poll released on Sunday said.
In the first round of a two-stage election to be held six months from now, Hollande would win 39 percent of votes, up eight percentage points from three weeks ago, while Sarkozy would have 24 percent, up three points, the LH2 poll for Yahoo said.
Sixty percent of those polled would back Hollande in a head-to-head contest with Sarkozy in the second round, according to the survey. This was unchanged since May apart from a dip in September.