Francois Hollande is most unpopular French president since Charles de Gaulle at height of 1968 riots

Approval rating plummets to 25% amid unemployment and public debt

French president Francois Hollande has become the most unpopular president in five decades, a new poll has revealed.

Mr Hollande's personal approval rating has plunged to just 25 per cent of the population amid soaring unemployment and ballooning public debt.

He is even more unpopular that President Charles de Gaulle was in 1968 - when millions of French rioted to demand a complete overhaul of French society.

French President Francois Hollande (centre) attends a breakfast meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris today: He has faced a series of personal and professional crisis since coming to power Anger: Hollande's social reform agenda has provoked mass dissent with thousands hitting the streets on Sunday to oppose the legalisation of gay marriage

The latest survey by pollsters Ifop found 38 per cent of the French were 'quite unhappy' with their socialist leader and 36 per cent were 'very unhappy' with him.

Mr Hollande came to power in May 2012 amid a fanfare of promises to redistribute wealth and rebuild France's ailing public services.

He declared himslef as 'anti-rich', and was dubbed 'Mr Normal' by the French press in sharp contrast to outgoing president Nicolas Sarkozy's love of private jets, designer suits and a supermodel wife.

Divisive: Hollande's partner Valerie Trierweiler has proved to be a controversial figure

He also promised a 'transparent' government that would not tolerate the repeated political corruption scandals that tainted the Sarkozy regime.

But after eight months in the job, he has been humiliated by a catalogue of political, economic and personal crises and found himself unable to control either the public finances or the wayward antics of First Lady Valerie Trierweiler.

Millionaires have been fleeing France in fear of a proposed 75 per cent tax on all earnings over one million euros.

The French equivalent of the UK's Confederation of British Industry, called MEDEF, has warned the president that France risked becoming 'the poor man of Europe' over his 'disastrous' economic policies.

The latest economic data shows households' spending power has fallen for the first time since 1984, and that jobless figures rose for a 22nd straight month in March to 10.6 per cent - the highest level since 1997.

His problems culminated this month with revelations his own budget minister Jerome Cahuzac had been hiding up to 20 million euros in a secret bank account to dodge taxes.

Hollande reacted by demanding that all 37 members of his government publish details of the wealth - and faced more flak for exposing six millionaires in his 'Champagne' socialist administration.

His girlfriend Valerie Trierweiler, 47, has also been the target of repeated media attacks since her boyfriend was elected president.

In June, she was at the centre of accusations she tried to wreck the political career of Segolene Royal - the mother of Mr Hollande's four children - by tweeting her support for a candidate standing against her in the parliamentary elections.

She is also demanding 70,000 pounds in damages over a book claiming she cheated on her husband with TWO lovers at once.

And she faced humiliation in December when her boss at the French magazine where she works described her as an 'unpinned grenade' and said she would be sacked at the end of this year.

A spokesman for pollsters Ifop said: 'He claimed to be the Robin Hood president who would help the poor and sweep away the corruption of the Sarkozy years.

'But he has been hit on all sides, by the economy, his policies, corruption and personal attacks. No president has ever been re-elected after falling as low as this.'

But Mr Hollande does still have one fervent hotbed of support - three thousand miles away in Mali, where he is being hailed as hero after successfully sending in French troops to crush a takeover by extremist Islamist rebels.

The Ifop poll published on Sunday was carried out by phone on 1,875 French voters aged over 18 between April 11 and 19.

Approval rating: President Hollande is as popular as his predecessor Charles de Gaulle as riots rocked the country in 1968 Unrest: The Paris protests of 1968 were led by students who demanded fundamental changes to society





