Opinion Poll warning for the French Presidential Elections

There are nine candidates in the first round, even were Sarkozy to win there would be a run-off with the second placed candidate unless a miracle occurred and the incumbent President gained more than 50% of the vote.

The following report in the New York Times this morning, linked here, is hugely confusing if you read this quote:

The Ifop/Fiducial poll of 1,638 eligible voters conducted March 11-12 found Mr. Sarkozy would garner 28.5 percent support if the first round, set for April 22, were held today, compared with 27 percent for Mr. Hollande. Mr. Sarkozy trailed Mr. Hollande in a projected second-round runoff in the same poll by 9 percentage points, 54.5 percent to 45.5 percent.

With a margin of sampling error of roughly 2 percentage points, the result put the two candidates virtually neck and neck. Previous polls put Mr. Hollande about 5 percentage points ahead in the first round.

Only the second round numbers have any real significance. Hollande at present looks like walking it!