Paris - With a little more than one week left before the EU parliamentary elections, the number of French voters saying they will not cast ballots on June 7 continues to grow, according to a poll published Friday in the daily Le Figaro.

In the survey, carried out by the OpinionWay-Fiducial organization, 57 per cent of the 5,581 respondents said they were not interested in the election, an increase of 2 per cent in one week.

"This is a defeat for everyone, for the major parties but also for the way the vote is held," said Bruno Jeanbart, head of political studies at OpinionWay.

The poll found that women and blue-collar workers are the groups that were turning their backs on the election the most.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party continued to lead in support in the poll, garnering 26 per cent, down 2 per cent in a week. The opposition Socialists were hovering at the symbolically important 20 per cent level, off 1 per cent.

The centrist party of former presidential candidate Francois Bayrou held steady at 13 per cent, ahead of the Europe Ecology slate of candidates, at 10 per cent.(dpa)