Here is the great debate - Hollande vs Sarkozy - segments / soundbites / commentary - draw your own conclusions as to who prevailed !

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9241927/French-presidential-debate-live.html

23.00: And we're done. Benedict Brogan concludes:

Nicolas Sarkozy needed a miracle to head off a defeat that looks increasingly inevitable. A marathon, at times violent debate with Francois Hollande was his chance to knock the challenger off his increasingly confident stride. But despite some brutal exchanges, he failed to produce a killer blow.

The campaign in fact was about discovering Mr Hollande, a veteran of the political scene who until tonight was a blank sheet for most voters. His reputation as a grey figure, a bit flabby – his colleagues refer to him as Flanby, a brand of French flan – with no noticeable charisma has been praised by his supporters as an antidote to Mr Sarkozy’s ‘bling’ presidency. But others fear that he is too soft to cope with the rigours of the job.

In that sense Mr Hollande will have benefited from the debate. For a start, voters saw him defending successfully his questionable policies on tax, Europe and immigration. But they also saw him keep his cool, and stand up to Mr Sarkozy’s hectoring. And he found a compelling way of describing the kind of president he would be, privileging the dignity of the office and implicitly distancing himself from the interfering practices of Mr Sarkozy. The debate is likely to seal a remarkable victory.

22:50 And we're onto closing statements, last chance for both men to make their appeals to the French people.

Hollande

This debate has been useful. We don't have the same project, and the balance sheet of Nicolas Sarkozy has been described as being particularly heavy. In 2007, in the same debate, he said: 'I want to be judged by my results'. Each person will judge what was done and what was not.

To change, that means to bring our country back to the grand cause. We must find ourselves again in the only value that is worth something: youth."

We will need all the force of France. The choice on Sunday is to continue with you, Nicolas Sarkozy, or change. I don't want to bring fear, even not even that of your own re-election. What I hope is that French people take back confidence and hope.

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Sarkozy

I did not put on a clothes peg to address the French people who voted for Marine Le Pen. I tell them that I heard their call to nation, to borders, to authority. The heart of the campaign of François Bayrou was the gold standard, but Mr Hollande doesn't want that. I want to adopt it, if needed by referendum.

"To all those who abstained: don't let the others vote for you. The question, it's you, what direction must France take? What future for our children? In a difficult world, we must know how to take decisions and assume responsibilities. If I am the candidate, it is with the passion of France and I hope to lead you in this difficult situation."

22.45: A slightly more sober tone is struck as the candidates discuss the crisis in Mali, where a military junta recently overthrew the government, creating a power vacuum that's allowed Islamist rebels to run riot. And an interesting distinction on Afghanistan:

Hollande calls for French troops in Afghanistan to come home: "I consider that now, French troops do not need to stay much longer in Afghanistan. That could have been done much sooner. We must bring back our combat troops at the end of 2012."

Sarkozy replies that the Taliban cut off the hands of little girls who wear nail polish, and says French troops must disengage in increments. "We have given the responsibility for Kabul back to the Afghans. To leave this year is materially impossible. That would be to renege on our agreements. France has allies, France has honour! So if I am re-elected we will leave the responsibility of the country to Afghanistan at the end of 2013.

22.43: Sarkozy seems to be coming apart as we barrel through the final segment of the debate.

Excellent rhetorical sequence by Hollande: "I, as President will respect the French..." as he lists what he intends to change

Sarkozy is really clutching at straws bringing Dominique Strauss-Kahn into the equation. That's a real sign of desperation.

He calls Hollande a "little liar". As we reach the final straight, Hollande is looking increasingly confident, and I almost feel sorry for Sarkozy. He's looking like a tired, frustrated little boy. His nervous tics are worse than ever. I think Hollande's combativity has taken him by surprise.

22.35: Hollande earlier went after Sarkozy on his handling of the European debt crisis and says that Sarkozy got "nothing" from Germany despite his diplomatic efforts:

22.27: Brace yourselves, says Henry Samuel. We're going to be here for a while.

We've been going for two and a half hours with no end in sight! They have not even got to foreign affairs yet.

Sarkozy has so far failed to land any knock out punches and Hollande got through the toughest part on immigration and non-EU nationals in local elections without any major scrapes. Sarkozy scored points by pointing out that the Socialists abstained in the vote to ban the burka. "When it required courage to pass this legislation on the burka you were absent," he said.

Once again, Sarkozy calls Hollande a "liar", "arrogant". "That's slander," he replies when Hollande says he failed to respect the independence of the judiciary.

22.25: Hollande gives an idealistic mini-speech on the role of the presidency. "I want to be a president who respects French people, who doesn not want to be president of everything, boss of everything and responsible for nothing. I will not be the boss of the majority."

But Sarkozy's reply is instant and withering: "The function of the President is not a normal function, and the situation is not a normal one. Your normality is not the top priority." He mocks that Hollande's remarks, saying it brings a tear to his eye.

(This all sounds even harsher in French)

22.20: We're going back and forth on Fessenheim, a nuclear power plant in Alsace. It's one of the oldest plants in Europe and around 100,000 people live within a couple of miles. Hollande argues it's a safety risk and should be closed. Sarkozy demands to know how he'll replace the 8,000 jobs that it supports.

"French nuclear power is the safest in the world. A Fukushima is a problem of tsunami, and I do not think at the borders of the Rhine there is a risk of a tsunami," says Sarko. Interestingly, the UMP representative from Alsace has publicly called for the plant's closure

22.10: Both men, not exactly hip kids at 57, have been mispronouncing iPad as "zipad", like some all-useful combination of a Zippo and an iPad. The internet responds thus:

21.58: Sarkozy is defending his ban on the burqa, saying that Hollandedidn't even have the courage to oppose othe law in the National Assembly and decided to abstain. "You're like a weather vane that turns on top of a church steeple," he sneers at his opponent.

21.56: Sarkozy's pursuit of Le Pen voters may be about to bite him. The candidates are now discussing the right to vote for legal aliens and it's turned into a discussion of Muslim immigrants. Sarko makes a feeble brag in defence of his record on French Muslims: "France treats muslims in France better than Christians are treated in the East".

He angrily inisists on integration, saying: "The countries of Northern Africa are Muslim, from the other coast of the Mediterranean. The community tensions come from who, from where? The problems of the French republic come from the absolute necessity of having an Islam of France and not an Islam in France."

21.55: The hot topic of immigration is now up. Sarkozy has been accused of stoking the fires of France's race problem with rhetoric about immigrants in order to win some of the 6.4 million votes that went toMarine Le Pen and her National Front (FN) party.

Hollande breaks the issue down into economic migrants and asylum seekers. On immigration for economic reasons: "Today, we must limit it. I propose that each year in Parliament there would be a discussion on the admissible number of peple for economic reasons, he said, adding that asylum seekers had to wait too long for a decision on their future, which he would want to reduce to six months.

Sarkozy is far more hardline. He says he wants to halve to 90,000 the number of 'titres de séjours', or short term visas, and impose a French language exam for new immigrants from the age of 16 years upwards. Migrants would have to live in France for 10 years to receive welfare payments, after paying taxes for five.

21.46: Benedict Brogan is impressed with the breadth of policy, if not the tone, of Le Debat so far:

21.42: In the Anglophone sphere, all this talk of croissance, an increase, is causing stomachs to rumble.

21.40: In the third chapter of the debate, on Europe, Hollande makes his displeasure known on the topic of Sarkozy's close ties with Germany andAngela Merkel, and their actions together in tackling the Eurozone crisis. He concedes that some attention paid to the deficit was necessary, but says that: "There was not any dimension for growth, we are imposing to these countries a generalised austerity: Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal..."

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21.35: Sarkozy's party have put out a timeline of action taken by the President in the face of the financial crises. It casts Sarko in a heroic light in every instance from the collapse of Lehman Brothers to the most recent Greek bailout. A less sympathetic reading would show a President buffeted by forces well beyond his control.

21.30: Hollande casts himself as the friend of the working man. He says he would protect those whose jobs involve hard labour, but that with Sarkozy's pension reforms passed in 2010 these workers could expect to start work at 18 and only stop at 62. He says he would allow them to retire at 60. Protests against pension reforms brought millions to the streets in the autumn of 2010.

21.25: The Socialists are gloating on Twitter, caustically writing: "Happily for Mr Sarkozy, there's only one debate".

21.20: The gloves, if they were ever on, have long been discarded, writesHenry Samuel:

This is turning into a fist fight with Sarkozy accusing Hollande of being a liar at least twice.

"You are not able to hold an argument without using such terms? It's no doubt in your vocabulary a complement," responds Hollande.

It's no prettier on the issues of taxes. "You want more less rich people, I want less poor people," says Sarkozy. Hollande hits straight back: "With you there are more poor people and the rich have got richer."

Sarkozy says "we have the highest taxes in Europe," adding that Hollande's "spending madness" would be the ruin of France. "As soon as the unions ask you something you are incapable of saying no. Do you contest the fact that we have the highest taxes in Europe?"

Hollande replied that Sarkozy has in fact increased tax, so has no leg to stand on.

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21.18: They've both dug in on the issue of taxes, arguing whether Sarko'sadministration has coddled the rich or squeezed them.

Hollande: "You have increased the tax burden by nearly one and a half points during your five-year term. It is you who have raised them and now you complain."

Sarkozy: "In the face of the crisis, I took decisions that reinforced taxes for the richest. Support that, is what I reply to you. Your reasoning is incoherent."

21.16: Interesting analysis of the challenger's style: "Francois Hollandehas the mind of a boxer, never below the belt, but no mercy"

21.15: Yet the Socialist has just found an elegant and populist formulation for his Left-wing views: "You gave cheques from the public treasury to the most fortunate. I recommend that the most fortunate should give cheques to the public treasury."

21.12: Hollande needs to be better on hitting the pocketbook issues so important to voters, writes Benedict Brogan.

Energy is a hot topic. Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly charged Francois Hollande with wanting to dismantle France's nuclear power, which provides 90pc of its energy and - he says - saves consumers 35pc on their bills. Mr Hollande hasn't rebutted it yet, which is dangerous. The President has also accused him of demagoguery by offering to freeze petrol prices, saying the consumer will pay. Again, Mr Hollande has not succeeded in answering the charge effectively, on an issue that matters to voters.

21.04: Interestingly, in 2007 it was Sarkozy who kept it cool, goading his then-opponent Ségolène Royal into losing her temper:

She was speaking about that encounter earlier, and not recalling it fondly:"He didn't look at me, he only looked at the journalists. There was always something in the way he held himself [that held] the bile of condescension".

21.00: We've reached the half-way mark. Henry Samuel says Sarkozy is hot and Hollande is cool but the Socialist seems to have edge.

One hour into the debate, it has to be said that Hollande is looking disarmingly calm and collected, while Sarkozy looks stressed and on the defensive.

That said, he has got in some good punches. "You want to block petrol prices? Two centimes less for petrol is one billion more in deficit. Is it worth it?," asked Sarkozy.

To allow the French to think one can control gas and petrol prices, nobody can believe that.

Also, he was convincing when saying that French growth has been the highest in Europe bar Germany. Hollande weirdly replied that America had higher debt. In Europe?

20.56: Sarkozy has an odd habit of speaking with shoulders. They rise and fall with him, flaring up in indignation and slumping in annoyance whenever his oppoent speaks. He leans across the table, which is prudently far too wide for the two men to be able throttle eachother over.

20.55: They're sparring over the national minimum wage and the age-old question of whether it drives up unemployment. Sarkozy, sometimes nicknamed "l'Américain", for his somewhat un-French love of freemarkets, says it does. "Less than 15% of people are on the minimum wage. Are you going to increase it? Then you will take people away from companies."

20.50: Benedict Brogan files from Paris on the President's artful half-truths:

Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to knock holes in Francois Hollande's economics policies. He's also accused him of wanting to get rid of nuclear power, which Mr Hollande didn't rebut though it isn't quite true. Mr Sarkozy is trying to portray his opponent as innumerate. His main line of attack is: your policy is more taxes, more spending, more debt and there isn't another country in Europe that backs that.

20.46: Some of the early moments. Speaking with a combination of wry amusement and immense frustration, Sarkozy lectures his opponent.Hollande rocks back in his seat at the President's attempt to "play the victim".

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20.45: Hollande is going after Sarkozy over his alleged complacency. "You're always content with yourself. No matter what happens you're always content," he sneers at the President.

20.43: A perennial Socialist favourite, the 35-hour working week, is considered by the candidates. Hollande says: "What we are seeing is the dismantling of the principle of the working week."

Sarkozy replies: "I believe that it is normal to take responsibility as President of the La Republique. Trusting people in modern economy in a modern world. Are you going to say that this is a class struggle, even in a smaller company of 40-50 people?"

Sarkozy wants to create more flexible working hours and allow bosses to give workers overtime in order to earn more money if they choose, but French Socialists see this as the thin end of the wedge when it comes to workers' rights.

20.39: The sparks and punches are flying, Henry Samuel writes:

This is a very tense debate. Both are desperately trying to keep their cool, but there's considerable electricity in the air.

The blows rained down early on in the debate when Mr Hollande said: "You think for five years you have brought the French together and not divided them, but I don't pit public and private workers against each other."

"For the past five years I have had only one idea in mind: to avoid violence...I never had to withdraw a text that would have wounded or created a civil war in our country," said Mr Sarkozy.

"If there has been no violence in the past five years, it’s down to French society,” said Mr Hollande.

“When I was compared to Franco, Laval, Pétain, even Hitler, you didn't say a word,” Mr Sarkozy said of nicknames some Left-wing media gave the President after his bid to woo the far-Right.

“You will have trouble passing yourself off as a victim,” Mr Hollande responded.

20.35: Kate Day, our Social Media Editor, has been keeping an eye on the Twitter war and it looks like #voteHollande is outstripping#avecSarkozy.

20.30: Benedict Brogan, the Daily Telegraph's Deputy Editor, emails from Paris on an ugly opening quarter:

The opening blasts about character are telling. Nicolas Sarkozy has accused Francois Hollande of tolerating the extraordinary abuse hurled at the President during the campaign - he's been compared to the leaders of collaborationist Vichy France "and why not Hitler?" It's set a bitter, angry tone for the debate.

20.25: The questions turn to unemployment. Hollande says that underSarkozy unemployment has increased, and that 3 million French people have "no work whatsoever".

He adds: "You said that if unemployment didn't go down to 5% you would have failed. So, you have failed." Hollande concedes the economic crisis will have affected this figure, but adds that "Unemployment increased more than in Genrmany where it is 6.5%."

Sarkozy counters this attack by listing the rise in unemployment in different European countries, adding that on average it increased by 30.2%, but 18.7% in France.

20.20: The tone has become nasty almost immediately, with both taking swipes at eachother's internal party machines. Sarkozy's brings up Axel Kahn, a Socialist candidate for local government in Paris who compared, the President's May Day rally to the Nazis' Nuremberg rallies. "Is this the spirit of togetherness?" he demands.

20.17: Hollande jabs at Sarkozy's ambivalent relationship with the with far-right "I'm from the left, I accept it. You're from the right, you can accept it or not."

20.15: The first blows are on who can unite France in a time of economic hardship and uncertainty, Henry Samuel reports:

Sarkozy, combative, said his rival's introduction was "classic", but that this must be a moment of "authenticity". France has no right to get it wrong. We are facing not a crisis, but crises. Bringing people together is very nice, but one must also have acts.

The pair then tussle over who will bring the French together. Sarkozy said Hollande was partisan, choosing unions and not representing all French.

Hollande hit back: "You think for five years you have brought the French together and not divided them, but I don't pit public and private workers against each other."

"I never had to withdraw a text that would have wounded or created a civil war in our country," said Sarkozy.

20.12: Sarko's political aides are aggressively echoing their boss on Twitter:

20.10: Sarkozy makes an emotional appeal directly to the viewers at home. "I want this to be a moment of truth, for the French people, from the bottom of our hearts this will be an historical decision.

At the end of these 2 hrs, I want people to be able to make up their minds. This must be a moment of democracy when the french turn off their tvs and they say they played it honest, they were on the level."

20.07: Hollande pitches himself as the candidate of justice andrassemblement, or "togetherness", compared to the more divisive Sarko.

"I will be the President for the recovery, France has fallen behind. I want the president who will restore production and growth. I want to be the President who brings the French together."

20.00: Here we go. Fittingly Hollande is on the Left and Sarkozy on the right with the two moderators - Laurence Ferrari of TF1 and David Pujadas of France 2 - in the middle. Beginning with brief opening statements.

19.58: Several of the elite of the Socialist Party (PS) were invited to watch the debate in the office of Martine Aubry, the party's First Secretary. "Look at the debate and prepare the response. This is the pack behind our candidate," she said, promising an American-style rapid response to the debate's developments.

19.54: Here's a snap of the set, with large clocks to keep both of the relatively verbose candidates on track.