President Sarkozy admitted on French television last night that he had made numerous mistakes in his first year in office, but he insisted that he would press on with reforms despite his growing unpopularity.

In combative form, Mr Sarkozy partly blamed the world economic slump for the woes of France as he responded for the first time to deep public disappointment with a presidency that is rated the most unpopular in half a century.

“There is disappointment, there are problems – not only do I know that, but I was prepared for it,” he said in his 90-minute interview with five journalists broadcast live from the Elysée Palace. “Without doubt I bear my share of responsibility,” he added.

He pleaded for the public to understand that his promised revival had been handicapped by what he called a quadruple shock of rising oil prices, financial crisis, the rising euro and rocketing commodity prices. “We have a difficult international context, all the more reason to accelerate reforms,” the President said.

The first “Sarko show” since January was designed by the President as a counter-attack after a deluge of criticism from the Socialist opposition, the media and part of his own centre-right camp over his handling of the state.

In contrast to his last televised account to the nation, when he boasted of his romance with Carla Bruni, the supermodel whom he married in February, Mr Sarkozy refused to discuss his domestic life last night. “No doubt I bore a share of the blame [for the overexposure],” he said. “Now everything has gone back to normal.”

Polls yesterday showed that only 28 per cent of the country believes that his presidency is going in the right direction and 79 per cent feel that their lives have not improved since he took office last May.

Mr Sarkozy depicted his errors as problems of explanation and presentation and stuck firmly to the promises on which he was elected. “France has been asleep for the past 25 years. France’s problem is that it does not work enough,” he said, promising to press on with moves to curb state spending and lighten regulation.

Criticising the international financial markets, he said: “I believe in capitalism, in the market economy but I think that our capitalism has got it all wrong. Financial capitalism has to be made moral.”

The President took the blame for feuding among Cabinet ministers, saying that he had been wrong to let them speak their minds in public.

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