Sarkozy loses ground ahead of vote Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday defied those tempted to write off his re-election campaign despite a new poll that showed the French president losing ground to Socialist challenger François Hollande ahead of Sunday's first round vote. In an interview with right-leaning daily Le Figaro published on Friday, Mr Sarkozy said the campaign ahead of the second round, in which he and Mr Hollande are expected to go head-to-head in two weeks" time, would mark "a new phase." "We finally pit project against project, personality against personality," said Mr Sarkozy, who is seeking to avoid the fate of Portuguese, Spanish, Greek and Italian rulers swept from office during the eurozone crisis. However, a final Ipsos poll published in Le Monde on Friday, the last day of campaigning, showed Mr Hollande still on course to become the first Socialist in 17 years to govern France. It gave him 29 per cent support in the first round, reopening a lead that had closed a week earlier over Mr Sarkozy, who was backed by 25.5 per cent of those polled. The poll also added to indications that Mr Hollande was faring far better than his chief rival in garnering the support of those voters whose preferred candidates are likely to be eliminated in the first round. It predicted a comfortable victory in the run-off with 56 per cent support, an unchanged tally from the previous week. On Thursday night Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftwing firebrand and surprise star of the campaign, sought to thrust popular resentment against Europe's rulers to the fore. The far left candidate's broadsides against the pro-European frontrunners, delivered at a raucous final rally in Paris on Thursday night, have focused attention on the horse-trading expected to ensue after the first round. Like Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the far-right National Front, Mr Mélenchon is seeking to extract concessions from the more centrist hopefuls. The former teacher has become a lightning rod for discontent with a European project he sees as favouring the interests of the continent's business and political elites. "We must strike at the Merkozy axis," Mr Mélenchon thundered on Thursday night, using the shorthand for the partnership between Mr Sarkozy and his German counterpart, Angela Merkel. The pair have jointly masterminded the bailouts and austerity policies that comprise the eurozone's response to its sovereign debt crisis. Mr Mélenchon, whose oratory again thrilled crowds waving red flags and chanting "resistance!," welcomed Mr Hollande's pledge to renegotiate the eurozone's fiscal discipline pact. But he attacked the Socialist flagbearer's record on Europe. Many on the far-left are suspicious of Mr Hollande's support for grand European projects of recent years, such as the Lisbon treaty that tightened the 27-member union's integration. The Ipsos poll put Mr Mélenchon on 14 per cent, two points behind Ms Le Pen. Ms Le Pen's strong polling is pulling Mr Sarkozy to the right just as Mr Hollande is seeking to strengthen support on the left. His campaign has signalled that Mr Sarkozy will take a tougher stance on immigration to the European Union if he is re-elected, with the president threatening to pull out of the bloc's borderless travel zone unless its frontiers are policed more firmly. Such comments chime with backers of Ms Le Pen, who is vehemently anti-immigration. Mr Sarkozy has also appeared to woo François Bayrou, pointedly declining to deny suggestions that the centrist candidate might be offered the premiership in a second Sarkozy administration. The Ipsos poll gave Mr Bayrou 10 per cent support in the first round. On Thursday Mr Hollande urged left-leaning voters to cast their ballots to avoid a repeat of 2002, when abstentions contributed to Lionel Jospin, the Socialist candidate, being ousted from the race in the first round at the hands of Jean-Marie Le Pen, Ms Le Pen's father. Mr Hollande dubbed the far right "the enemy of the republic." In what some Mélenchon supporters saw as a concession, Mr Hollande echoed a far-left manifesto pledge with a promise to raise the minimum wage - though he said he would do so "within the limits of the economic situation." Heavily indebted France, which lost its treasured triple A credit rating earlier this year, has seen its borrowing costs climb of late, although they remain well below the levels of more troubled southern eurozone members. Despite his leading role in Europe's crisis response, Mr Sarkozy has also sought to tap discontent with the bloc's institutions. He called for the European Central Bank to be given a broader mandate to include fostering growth.