French presidential front-runner François Hollande headed into the last round of his battle with Nicolas Sarkozy with both of the candidates threatened by the shadow of scandal.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted yesterday that he will not be the candidate of a small elite against the people, in the first major rally of his re-election bid.

PRESIDENT Nicholas Sarkozy might have just got remarried, but his love affair with the French electorate appears well and truly over.

French voters woke up to very different airwaves today as the race for next month’s presidential elections formally took off and each of the 12 candidates was granted equal broadcast time.