PARIS - Socialist candidate Francois Hollande appeared to solidify his chances at winning France’s presidency Thursday after voters welcomed his strong showing in a debate against beleaguered incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.
Hollande also won the support of a prominent centrist who came in fourth in the first round of elections.
The conservative Sarkozy has trailed Hollande throughout the campaign in polls and needed a knockout performance in Wednesday night’s debate. Pollsters said the mild-mannered Hollande was surprisingly resilient in the bitter back-and-forths with his longtime rival.
“Now the campaign is pretty much finished,’’ said Gael Sliman, a pollster at BVA agency. “With the exception of a completely unforeseen catastrophe in the next 48 hours, Francois Hollande is going to win the presidential election.’’
The result of the runoff will set the course for the next five years for France, a nuclear-armed country with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. It could reshape debate in the 17-nation eurozone - which Sarkozy has helped guide along with Germany’s Angela Merkel - on how to best resolve the European debt crisis amid sluggish growth across the continent.
Centrist leader Francois Bayrou dealt Sarkozy a new blow Thursday night. Bayrou said he would not give his voters specific guidance for Sunday’s vote, but will cast a ballot for Hollande.
“The vote for Francois Hollande, that’s the choice I am making,’’ he said.
Hollande and Sarkozy held big rallies Thursday night in southern France, where they repeated the arguments of the previous night’s debate.
The top two French networks that co-hosted Wednesday night’s debate estimated at least 19.5 million people, or about a third of France’s population, tuned in.
The verdict in France’s daily newspapers was mixed: Le Parisien headlined about a harsh debate, and conservative Le Figaro’s front page read; “High Tension.’’ The left-leaning Liberation wrote: “Hollande presided over the debate.’’
Hollande yielded no ground in the verbal slugfest, in which the two traded accusations about flawed claims by the other: Sarkozy called his rival a “little slanderer’’ and repeatedly said he had lied.
Critics of Sarkozy have often faulted him for his brash style, alleged chumminess with the rich, and inability to reverse France’s tough economic fortunes and nearly double-digit jobless rate.
Sarkozy, for his part, has defended his record as better than others amid economic woes across Europe.
“Even the French who don’t like him or voted for him say Nicolas Sarkozy is courageous, is someone who has authority,’’ said Sliman, the pollster. “Yet during the debate, he indeed had many ticks, he was sometimes . . . giving the impression of someone lost.’’
Hollande is often derided by critics as indecisive and unwilling to make tough choices to cut a bloated state budget. State spending makes up more than 56 percent of economic output in France, one of the highest such rates in the 27-nation European Union.