French President François Hollande hit back on Friday against claims by his former partner, Valérie Trierweiler, that he secretly despises the poor in his first public reaction to her explosive memoir published a day earlier.

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Speaking to reporters after a NATO summit wrapped up in Wales, Hollande said that he was "at the service of the poorest" and that serving them was his "raison d'être".

In one of the most damaging claims in Trierweiler's bombshell memoir, she said Hollande had voiced contempt for the poor, saying he called them the "toothless".

Hollande said: "I will never accept that anyone calls what has been my life’s commitment into question," urging also that "the office of the president be respected".

He said he served "the most fragile, the most modest, the most humble and the poorest" people in France.

The embattled Hollande, who has plunged to record new lows in recent opinion polls, also stressed that he would "go to the end" of his mandate in 2017.

There is "no opinion poll that can interrupt the mandate that the people have given", he said.

A TNS Sofres poll released on Thursday and conducted even before the Trierweiler revelations put his approval ratings at 13 percent.

Only 1 percent of French people said they had "total confidence" in Hollande "to resolve the problems France is currently facing".

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

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