PARIS (AFP) ― On the face of it, the return to France’s political stage of unpopular right-wing former president Nicolas Sarkozy is welcome news for the beleaguered left.

President Francois Hollande’s Socialists have risen quickly to the bait, saying Sarkozy’s record would haunt him, along with a raft of legal entanglements.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls seemed to savor the fight, saying Saturday: “The democratic debate on the track record, on the plan, on the economic situation, is on.”

Sarkozy’s record “will be his millstone,” said Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, the head of the Socialist Party.

But political scientist Laurent Bouvet said Sarkozy’s comeback was a “poisoned chalice” for a left too eager to sweep its own failings under the carpet.

“The French left thought it was unified and strengthened in the fight against its declared and detested enemy (during the 2012 election), but it has shown itself to be weaker and more divided than ever since coming to power,” Bouvet wrote in Slate’s French version.

Sarkozy’s return will give new hope for another election win in 2017 “to anyone on the left forgetting the reality of the economic and political situation, forgetting the difficulties ... since 2012,” he said.

The man who lost to Hollande in 2012 is credited with having made audacious foreign policy moves but broadly failing on the economic front, particularly on jobs.

Unemployment rose to close to 10 percent on Sarkozy’s watch at the height of the financial crisis, and more than double that rate among young people.

His “bling-bling” style also shocked the country after he celebrated his 2007 victory at a posh Paris restaurant and went straight for a holiday on his billionaire friend’s yacht.

But Hollande, 60, has hardly fared better than Sarkozy, now 59, in the economic sweepstakes, with record unemployment and growth hovering around zero.