Nicolas Sarkozy sets out comeback plans for France's UMP party on TV

The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was given a prime-time television news slot to explain his plans after announcing his return to frontline politics. Sarkozy set out his platform for the race to head the opposition UMP party, which will hold a hotly contested leadership vote in November.

For Sarkozy: The Return Part II, he was given 45 minutes to reintroduce himself to the French public.

If viewers had expected a changed, wiser and less confrontational Sarko, they were to be disappointed. Asking the presenter – twice – if he imagined that the former French leader had "just two brain cells", Sarkozy launched into a vigorous defence of his five years in power and a vehement attack on the state of France and the current Socialist government.

Saying he had "perhaps less energy, but more wisdom", Sarkozy explained that he felt duty-bound to return not through personal ambition, but because of the "lack of hope, the anger and the absence of vision" that François Hollande's government had imposed on his compatriots.

Accusing Hollande of "a litany of lies" during the 2012 presidential campaign, which he said he had "lost … but by very little", he repeatedly said he was not there to attack Hollande – but then did.

"I'm not going to caricature him [Hollande], because there's already too much violence in our country. His actions speak for themselves. In two years, he has demolished what we did only because we did it," Sarkozy said. "I don't want to argue with Mr Hollande. He thinks bad things of me; I think nothing of him."

Sarkozy had said he would not speak about the 2017 presidential election; he is ostensibly returning to politics to challenge former colleagues for the post of president of the centre-right UMP opposition party. However, Sarkozy mentioned the UMP only once, confirming the general belief that, if elected to head the party, he will use the post as a springboard for the 2017 vote.

Asked about his rivals in the UMP leadership race, Alain Juppé and François Fillon, both former prime ministers, Sarkozy said he knew them both well and would "need" them in future, giving the impression the choice of UMP leader was already a fait accompli.

The man nicknamed "Super Sarko" for his frenetic, hyperactive personality became animated at the end of the interview when asked about the Socialist government's so-called "marriage for all" legislation that legalised same-sex unions and brought hundreds of thousands of mostly rightwing, traditional, Catholic protesters on to the streets of France. Sarkozy admitted that while he would not repeal the law, he "detested" the way it was introduced by Hollande's Socialist government, and accused the Socialists of "humiliating families and humiliating people who love the family".

A poll by CSA for the television chain BFMTV before the televised interview on Sunday evening found that six out of 10 French voters disapprove of his comeback.

In a newspaper interview after declaring his comeback on his Facebook page on Friday, Sarkozy told Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD): "It's a long march that's beginning."

He suggested he was a new man who had had time to "reflect" after his election defeat in 2012, but insisted he would say nothing of his plans to stand for president again in 2017. "I am without arrogance or a sense of revenge. I'm not announcing that I'm a candidate for the presidential elections. That's for later. The step today is to get my political family back to work."

Despite his protestations of apparent humility, Sarkozy, 59, said his announcement had eclipsed those of his UMP rivals. He told the JDD: "My audience on Facebook doubled that of Hollande's press conference, and in a single day I've gained more new friends than Juppé and Fillon put together," he said. "I've read that one third of people are interested in my return. That's still 20 million people. How many would Hollande, Juppé or Fillon get if the same question was asked of them?"

Sarkozy said he would "change the name of the party, put in place a new organisation, put in a new guard and attract party members and donors to balance the books".

The historian and writer Jean Garrigues, whose book Providential Men examines France's fascination with and quest for a great leader, told JDD Sarkozy's return had put the country into an "almost permanent presidential campaign". He warned this was destroying political parties that he said become "election machines" for candidates instead of generators of political ideas.

However, Garrigues admitted: "The French are very attached to this kind of republican monarchy. On the right we see the resurrection of the myth of the providential man, a kind of saviour who, in times of crisis, can resolve their problems. For some of those on the right who idolise Sarkozy, there is something sacred about him. This idea of the providential man, which goes back to Bonaparte, has always been rejected by the left."

The Socialist prime minister, Manuel Valls, said he had more important matters to deal with than the former president's return. "I'm responsible for the government of France, not the future of the UMP," he told journalists during an official visit on Saturday.

The centrist François Bayrou, whose support will be vital for the French right, said after Sarkozy's comeback announcement: "The questions is to know if men change. In general their basic nature does not change, but we will see. France needs a clear line and a strong will and she needs soothing. During the five years Nicolas Sarkozy was in power, the least we can say was that there was no strong line and soothing wasn't on the agenda."

Florian Philippot, vice president of the far-right Front National, said: "It's not even a return since we've the impression he never left … For me it's a non-event. It'll interest a tiny microcosm for a few days, but the majority of French are completely uninterested in this return."

An Ifop poll for the JDD claimed support for Hollande had dropped to just 13%, the lowest for any modern French president. At his lowest point, Sarkozy still had 28% popularity.