Probably only Izzy will understand why my first thought was "International Family of Pancakes."
Arlette Laguiller 58% (+5) (Wasn't the consensus here that she's sectarian-personal-cultist lunatic-left? And why the significant increase?)
José Bové 54% (+2) (That's pretty mainstream-approval, too)
Lionel Jospin 51% (-4) (Why the significant drop?)
Jean-Luc Mélenchon 18 (-1) (Who's this guy 'outdoing' the Le Pens?)
As for Villepin and Sarko, in this poll, Sarko is unchaged at 56% but Villepin crashed 11% to 51%... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
José Bové is another very popular leftie. His stand on food quality speaks to (many) French hearts. If the main parties had people of the charisma and capabilities of Bové instead of the horror show they've actually got, they'd clean up.
Mélenchon (not to be confused with Melanchthon ;)) is on the left of the PS, a main figure in the "non" movement with Fabius.
The changes in sympathy, I don't know, except that, at the moment with a social movement under way, the main parties lose points that the fringes pick up (? conjecture).
And why is he so strongly unpopular? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
She was also made popular by her puppet in Les Guignols de l'Info, the popular satirical show (which was extremely influential in the mid-90s), which focused on her tireless, selfless, campaigning for "workers" ("travailleurs, travailleuses").
She was elected to the European Parliament in 1999, and her group ended up killing a law that would have improved workers' rights. The argument was that anythign that improves workers' right is a balm that needlessly delays revolution. Really. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
