I will quit if denied 2nd term - Sarkozy

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday he will quit politics if he fails to win a second term in this year's elections.

“If you lose this presidential election, will you stop (being in) politics?” a journalist asked the incumbent leader in an interview on RMC radio and BFM TV.

“Yes, I tell you,” Sarkozy replied.

“I'll do something else, I don't know what,” he said, while assuring: “I'm not thinking about that prospect.”

The remarks are not the first of the sort by Sarkozy, whom opinion polls consistently show trailing Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande.

With just weeks to go to the first round of the election, on April 22, latest surveys credit Sarkozy with between 25 and 28 per cent of voter intentions, compared with between 27 and 33 percent for Hollande.

In January, Sarkozy told a group of journalists who accompanied him on a visit to French Guiana that he would withdraw from public life if spurned by voters.

“You won't see me anymore,” he said at the time. - Sapa-dpa