PARIS, Nov 21: French President Nicolas Sarkozy received a boost from a poll on Sunday showing his popularity rebounding from record lows, but he faced a growing scandal over allegations of back payments on 1990s naval deals with Pakistan.

The 55-year-old conservative leader hoped a cabinet reshuffle last week would help turn the page on a difficult year marred by allegations of illegal funding of his conservative UMP party and a series of national protests over his pension reform.

A survey by pollsters Ifo published in the Journal du Dimanche offered Mr Sarkozy some respite. It showed his approval rating inching up by 3 percentage points to 32 per cent in early November, after hitting rock-bottom in October at the height of union-led protests against legislation to raise the pension age.

The poll was conducted either side of a Nov 14 cabinet reshuffle, which retained government heavyweights like Economy Minister Christine Lagarde but ditched centrists and left-wing converts to shore up Mr Sarkozy's right-wing support base.

However, Sunday's newspapers all led on the investigation into the 'Karachi affair', in which 11 French naval engineers and technicians died in a 2002 bomb attack in the Pakistani port, originally thought to be the work of militants.

Relatives of the victims launched a case this week against former president Jacques Chirac and his then chief-of-staff Dominique de Villepin, alleging the suicide attack was a reprisal for Mr Chirac''s decision to halt commissions on Agosta submarine sales to Pakistan when he won power in 1995.

A judge is also separately investigating whether illegal back-payments from the contract were used to finance the 1995 presidential bid of Mr Sarkozy's political mentor Edouard Balladur, prime minister in 1994 when the submarine contracts were signed.

“We owe the truth to the families,” Socialist legislator Jerome Cahuzac told Europe 1 radio on Sunday, calling for a parliamentary investigation into the affair and accusing the government of withholding information on Mr Balladur's funding.—Reuters