Sarkozy and Hollande lock horns on TV

French President Nicolas Sarkozy aggressively attacked François Hollande in a keenly anticipated television debate on Wednesday night but apparently failed to do serious damage to his Socialist challenger, who fought back blow by blow.

The two candidates, meeting in the only face-to-face confrontation of the campaign ahead of Sunday’s presidential election, frequently exchanged bad-tempered barbs as they wrangled over the state of France’s economy, the eurozone crisis and the proper conduct of the country’s head of state.

Mr Sarkozy, trailing Mr Hollande in the polls for months, went straight on the attack in an effort to expose what he saw as his opponent’s weaknesses on policy and his lack of government experience.

Mr Hollande spent much of the time explaining and defending his plans but also counter-attacked and became increasingly assertive as the near three-hour marathon wore on.

From the start, the two swapped angry exchanges, ignoring the interventions of the two moderators who struggled to keep the debate on track. The president challenged Mr Hollande “to speak the truth” and complained bitterly that he had been insulted constantly by his opponent’s supporters. “When they compared me to Franco and Pétain, you didn’t say a word,” he said, referring to the former Spanish fascist dictator and France’s wartime collaborationist leader.

Mr Hollande, belying his passive image, hit back in kind. “Your friends compared me to who knows what beasts, to animals in the zoo.”

Mr Sarkozy, repeatedly accusing Mr Hollande of lying about the state of the economy and his policy proposals, said: “In your determination to prove the unproveable, you lie.” Mr Hollande spat back: “You are incapable of making an argument without being unpleasant.”

Some of the most heated arguments were over economic policy, with Mr Sarkozy determined to undermine the credibility of Mr Hollande’s programme, which includes tax rises on the wealthy and promises of significant spending in public services, particularly education.

“You will be incapable of finding savings. Once again it will be budgetary laxity and spending madness,” Mr Sarkozy said.

Mr Sarkozy repeatedly invoked Germany’s superior economic performance to back his proposals for a cut in France’s high labour costs, offset by a rise in value added tax, and for more flexibility in wage and worktime negotiations – measures opposed by Mr Hollande. “How can you say Germany has done better than us but you won’t do the same as they have done?” he demanded.

But Mr Hollande castigated Mr Sarkozy’s economic record, attacking the steep rise in France’s debt and a sharp deterioration in its trade balance. “Your comparison with Germany is pitiful,” he declared. “Our unemployment has risen and our competitiveness has declined during [the centre right’s] 10 years in power.”

He also reminded viewers that one of Mr Sarkozy’s first acts a president in 2007 was to attend a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in person to tell them that France would not be honouring its deficit reduction promises.

Mr Sarkozy in turn attacked Mr Hollande’s call for a renegotiation of the new EU fiscal discipline treaty to add new provisions on growth. He noted that most of these provisions, including boosting the European Investment Bank and re-orienting European structural funds, were already under way.

In one of Mr Hollande’s most forceful interventions, he laid into Mr Sarkozy’s conduct in office, saying: “You led a biased and partisan presidency and now you are paying the consequences.”

Mr Sarkozy, who closed the debate, ended by making an appeal to those who voted in the first round of the election for Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, and for François Bayrou, the centrist candidate, to help him to re-election.