President Nicolas Sarkozy admitted on Thursday he has made "mistakes" during his tumultuous first year in power but vowed to press on with his reform drive.

The French leader also signalled a tough line on foreign policy, saying he was "shocked" by the recent unrest in Tibet, standing firm against Turkey's EU bid and ruling out any contact with the Taliban or the Islamist Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

Swept to power last May on a promise to kickstart the economy, Sarkozy has seen his poll ratings plummet faster than any president since World War II, and is facing mounting hostility to his changes to French society.

"I probably made mistakes myself," Sarkozy said in a prime time television interview, when asked to comment on polls that show three quarters of voters are unhappy with his record in office.

Sarkozy admitted his right-wing government had "probably not explained well enough" its goals, a frequent complaint from his own conservative camp.

But he added: "There will always be someone in France who's not happy."

Souring economic mood

He pointed at soaring oil and food prices and the fallout from the sub-prime loan crisis in the United States to explain the souring economic mood in France — seen by pollsters as a key reason for his plummeting ratings.

"France has been asleep for the past 25 years... We have a difficult international context, all the more reason to accelerate reforms," Sarkozy said, pointing at 55 different projects already underway.

"France's problem is that it does not work enough," he said, defending his efforts to relax France's 35-hour working week which he called an "economic catastrophe".

Sarkozy said the government would seek to coax the long-term unemployed back to work — including scrapping benefits for people who turn down two job offers — and unveil a bill to boost employee share ownership.

He promised a law to drive down retail prices, with polls showing spending power rather than unemployment, to be the number one public concern.

The 53-year-old president paid a high political price for his divorce and celebrity romance with former supermodel Carla Bruni, France's new first lady, which jarred with an increasingly gloomy economic mood.

Only 28 percent of the French believe his presidency is going in the right direction, according to two polls by CSA and IFOP.

The government faces mass protests from school students over teaching job cuts while dockers have closed French ports in protest at privatisation plans.

Sarkozy has changed his style, from the whirlwind "hyperactive" president of the early days to project a more statesmanlike image, and he insisted on Thursday that his turbulent private life was now "back in order".

But the slowing economy and inflation at a 15-year high have significantly reduced Sarkozy's room for manoeuvre on the domestic front.

Tensions with China

On the flare-up of tensions between France and China, Sarkozy said he was "shocked" by the deadly unrest in Tibet, even as top level French envoys were in Beijing to defuse the situation after days of anti-French protests.

"I cannot accept what happened in Tibet. I was shocked by what happened in Tibet and I said so to the Chinese president," Sarkozy said.

He argued that "the province of Tibet needs to have greater autonomy," but also stressed that "Tibet is part of China... the Dalai Lama himself is not asking for Tibetan independence".

Sarkozy said he had not yet decided whether to stay away from the 8 August Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing, a threat that inflamed tensions with China along with protests during the Paris leg of the Olympic torch relay.

But the French president also spoke out against mounting criticism of China's rights record, stressing its role in tackling Iran's nuclear ambitions and the crisis in Sudan's Darfur.

"I do not want to see China excluded from the concert of nations," Sarkozy said.

Separately, Sarkozy reaffirmed his opposition to Turkey joining the European Union and said he would order a referendum on Turkish entry if necessary.

And he vowed that as head of state he would not hold talks with the Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the Taliban militia in Afghanistan.

Defending his decision to send extra French troops to Afghanistan, Sarkozy said that if France abandons the Afghan government nuclear-armed Pakistan "will fall like a house of cards".

AFP