Sarkozy on defensive in bitter final election battle

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for tougher borders and a stronger national identity on Sunday and accused the left of petty slander as he struggled to catch up with his Socialist rival a week before a presidential runoff.

Sarkozy, who lags his centre-left challenger Francois Hollande by 10 points in opinion polls for the May 6 vote, hammered home a message aimed at the nearly one-in-five far-right voters whose support he needs to win a second term.

In a speech in the southern city of Toulouse, which was shaken in March when an Islamic gunman went on a shooting rampage, the conservative Sarkozy used the word "border" dozens of times as he stressed that love of one's country should not be confused with "dangerous nationalist ideology".

"Without borders there is no nation, there is no Republic, there is no civilisation," Sarkozy told some 10,000 supporters. "We are not superior to others but we are different," he said.

Hollande took the moral high ground when he addressed some 22,000 Socialist voters at a simultaneous rally in Paris, saying he would not stoop to using such vote-garnering tactics.

"I want victory, but not at any price, not at the price of caricature and lies," he said. "I want to win over the men and women who are angry, a hundred times yes, but compromise myself? A thousand times no."

There was scant mention of the economy from either, despite widespread concern over sickly growth levels that are threatening deficit-cutting targets in Europe's No. 2 economy.

Hollande's tax-and-spend programme seeks to balance the budget in 2017, a year after Sarkozy, who wants to trim labour costs to boost competitiveness. Analysts say that whoever wins, big austerity cuts will be needed in the months ahead.

The surprise score of National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who swept 17.9 percent of last Sunday's presidential first round to rank third behind Hollande and Sarkozy, has turned the runoff into a fight for her voters, many of whom say they will abstain.

Under fire from members of his own political camp for a lurch to the right over the past week, Sarkozy seemed, however, to focus solely on those voters as he criticised Europe for being unquestioningly dedicated to free trade.

"In 2007, the issue was work. In 2012, the issue is borders and I will put them at the centre of the debate," he said.

As the duel between the hot-blooded Sarkozy and the mild-mannered Hollande heated up, the president scorned a report by investigative website Mediapart saying deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi sought to fund his 2007 election campaign.

He also dismissed as nonsense accusations from former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Socialists' presidential favourite before he was felled by a May 2011 sex scandal, that his downfall was orchestrated by his political foes.

The Socialists distanced themselves from the Strauss-Kahn accusations, published in British daily The Guardian on Friday.

Hollande said bluntly "he should not reappear in any form until this campaign concludes" and several party heavyweights walked out of a drinks party when they heard he was due to attend.