Confidence in embattled French President Francois Hollande has plunged to a new all-time low of 13 percent, according to a new opinion poll published Thursday, AFP reports.
Confidence in embattled French President Francois Hollande has plunged to a new all-time low of 13 percent, according to a new opinion poll published Thursday, AFP reports.
The survey, by TNS Sofres for centre-right Figaro magazine, showed he had lost five percentage points of support in France in the last two months.
The poll was carried out before revelations by Hollande's former partner Valerie Trierweiler, which painted him as power-hungry and cold.
However, it was conducted after Hollande and his Prime Minister Manuel Valls were forced into an emergency reshuffle following a damaging left-wing rebellion within his ruling Socialist Party.
The shock reshuffle, preceded by a government resignation that caught everyone off guard, plunged France into a political crisis that mirrored its current economic woes.
Unemployment is running at above 10 percent, at record highs, and the economy has registered zero growth in the first two quarters of the year.
To counter this stagnation, Hollande and Valls have come up with the Responsibility Pact -- a programme of tax breaks for business and deep cuts in public spending -- that has sparked outcry from the more leftist members of their party.
Valls, who was a popular choice as prime minister when appointed just five months ago, also suffered in the polls, falling a stunning 14 points to an approval rating of 30 percent.
TNS Sofres said only one percent of French people said they had "total confidence" in Hollande "to resolve the problems France is currently facing."
Twelve percent of those polled said they were "somewhat confident" in Hollande.
On the other side of the fence, 57 percent said they had "no confidence whatsoever" in Hollande's ability to tackle France's problems and 28 percent said they were "somewhat lacking in confidence" in their president.
Two percent voiced no opinion for the poll that was carried out between August 28 and September 1 among a representative sample of 1,000 adults.