French green party candidate Yannick Jadot on Thursday announced he was dropping from the presidential race and would back Socialist party candidate Benoit Hamon in two stage elections in April and May.

"I am withdrawing as a candidate in the presidential election to take part in a great adventure," Jadot said on France 2 television after striking a "marvelous" agreement with with the Socialists earlier in the day.

Opinion polls show Jadot getting one or two percent of the vote, but by throwing his support behind fourth place Hamon the left hopes to consolidate its voter base to advance in the polls. Hamon has unsuccessfully sought to persuade Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon to drop out of the race and support his bid.

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Some polls show all three men may have enough supporters to give a leftist alliance a chance to mount a challenge.

Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader of the National Front, is currently ahead in the polls with about a quarter of the vote. But she is forecasted to lose the second round vote on May 7 to centrist former economy minister Emmanuel Macron or Francois Fillon, the conservative candidate for the right-wing Republicans party.

Macron was given a slight boost this week after centrist François Bayrou threw his support behind the centrist candidate. Two new polls released showed Macron neck-and-neck with Fillon at about 20 percent each, while a third showed the former economy minister slightly ahead of Fillon after Bayrou's announcement.

A leftist alliance would make Macron and Fillon path to the presidency more difficult.

All the polls show Le Pen winning the first round election on April 23 but losing in the May 7 runoff against either Macron or Fillon.

cw/rc (AFP, dpa, Reuters) </s> Former rebel minister Benoit Hamon, ejected from the government of Francois Hollande, is leading establishment Socialist Manuel Valls into the final round of primaries to nominate who from the embattled French left will run for president.

Valls, a former prime minster under Hollande, will face-off against Hamon in a television debate this week. While the outcome of the primaries in unpredictable, Reuters reported Hamon, a junior minister under Hollande, had made it through comfortably ahead of Valls in the penultimate round of voting.

Hamon came to prominence after criticising the president's economic policy, a stance which cost him his job. His image as an outsider as well as a parting gift from third-place candidate Arnaud Montebourg, who attacked Valls' pro-business policies and urged voters to back Hamon appear to have given the 49 year old an extra edge.

After fewer than four years in power whichever candidate is chosen to run in the April elections will be a rank outsider. The Socialist party has become deeply unpopular in France over its failure to curb unemployment and has alienated its base with its economic policies.

Current polls in France appear to show conservative Francois Fillon has the most likely path to the Elysee Palace if he faces National Front leader Marine Le Pen in the second round of elections.

Fillon, a former UMP Prime Minister, will also have to see off popular independent Emmanuel Macron. The former economy minister has appealed to both left and right and is attracting large crowds to rallies with a centrist agenda. The 39-year-old ex-banker could yet upset the vote or swing the balance from Fillon. </s> Benoit Hamon will be the French Socialist Party's candidate for April's presidential election.

He beat ex-prime minister Manuel Valls in the vote on Sunday, partial results showed.

Former education minister Mr Hamon was dismissed from current French President Francois Hollande's government for criticising a pro-business shift in policy.

He won 59% of the vote, but is not expected to perform well in the presidential elections as Conservative Francois Fillon, right-wing Marine Le Pen, and centrist Emmanuel Macron led the polls.
Yannick Jadot drops out in an effort to boost Benoît Hamon.