Jean Sarkozy, the 23-year-old son of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, bowed to intense public pressure by giving up his ambition to run the state agency that oversees France’s biggest business district, La Défense.

In an interview on national television on Thursday night, the young local councillor, elected in the department that was the launchpad for his own father’s bid for the presidency, said he was not prepared to accept a “victory tainted by the suspicion of favouritism”.