François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy squared off in a major presidential debate on French television this week, in preparation for this Sunday’s second round of the French presidential election.

Sarkozy, the incumbent president, has been trailing Hollande in the polls and desperately needed to win the debate decisively.

The debate certainly produced fireworks and verbal jabs between the two candidates, but most political commentators seem to feel that Sarkozy failed to land a knock-out blow. Indeed, despite the drama, the polls of French voters seem unchanged by the debate: Hollande is still leading at approximately 53% of the vote to Sarkozy’s 47%.

LeMonde and Libération both have coverage of the debate as well as the full video of the televised event.  The BBC and the New York Times provide reports in English.

NIU Students in HIST 311 Early Modern France and HIST 423 French Revolution and Napoleon will be interested in these reports.