French President Nicolas Sarkozy's approval rating has plunged six points to its lowest level since his election, mid-way through his five-year term, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The number of voters who approved of the French leader sank to 39 percent, according to the monthly IFOP poll for Paris Match magazine, the lowest recorded in the survey since he took office in May 2007.

Sixty percent of respondents were unhappy with his performance, according to the telephone poll of 1001 people carried out on October 29 and 30 using the quota method.

Sarkozy is fighting to reassure voters after his government -- already battling 10-percent unemployment as the country emerges slowly from recession -- was hit by two major political controversies in the space of a few weeks.

The first was a row over Sarkozy's defence of Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand, who came under attack over accounts in his memoir describing his past as a sex tourist in Asia.

In the second scandal, Sarkozy's 23-year-old son Jean was forced to drop a bid for a job managing France's top business district after it sparked angry accusations of nepotism.