Moreover, Mr Fillon claimed cheerily that economic growth would do half the repair work.
Mr Fillon may be right that many voters are impatient for more and deeper reforms.
Fillon disputed this and the pair eventually agreed to a re-election later this year.
Fillon added that his ideas build upon those presented by Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen.
Mr Fillon pointedly stayed out of the debate, warning that it risked "stigmatising Muslims".
Yet Mr Fillon, whose calm, professorial style contrasts with Mr Sarkozy's hyperactivity, is unusually popular.
But France's Prime Minister Francois Fillon responded that the Irish government should not interfere in footballing decisions.
Mr Fillon insisted this week that the government would step up its reforms in response to the election.
Fillon has previously served as the French Education and Social Affairs Minister and the Minister of Labor.
Of the 183 UMP deputies in the National Assembly, it is believed at least 60 will join Mr Fillon's faction.
The reason Mr Fillon contacted the deputy prime minister is that Mr Clegg is his equivalent in the British government.
Prime Minister Fillon expressed his "indignation" at the attack on the newspaper.
Mr Fillon's office said he "took the initiative" to call Mr Clegg to "clear up misunderstandings" over his remarks about the British economy.
Jean-Francois Cope officially won the UMP election on Sunday but Francois Fillon demanded a recount after it emerged 1, 300 votes had been omitted.
BBC: UMP rivals Fillon and Cope called to face-to-face talks
After his opponent's victory, Mr Fillon warned of a deepening split in the party which he described as a "political and moral fracture".
Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in a statement that the National Front's score "shows that the protest vote must not be underestimated or trivialised".
BBC: France: Martine Aubry spurred by Socialist poll victory
Fillon told French radio station RTL that "there was no single element" that would have allowed the police to arrest Mohammed Merahbefore the killings began.
"Open crisis in the UMP", says a front-page headline in the centre-right Figaro after Jean-Francois Cope and former Prime Minister Francois Fillon both claimed victory.
Francois Fillon has set up his own faction of the UMP party in the French parliament, demanding a repeat of the leadership ballot within three months.
Mr Fillon said he favoured the idea, floated by Mr Cope, of a party referendum in January, but stressed it must be held "in conditions of objectivity".
As left-wing bloggers mocked Mr Cope's victory, dubbing the party under his leadership the "FNUMP", Mr Cope said he had telephoned Mr Fillon to ask for his support.
On the currency markets, the euro fell to a new four-year low against the dollar after comments from French Prime Minister Francois Fillon suggested the single currency's weakness was "good news".
Mr Juppe called on both Mr Cope, the party's secretary general since 2010 and Mr Fillon, prime minister under Mr Sarkozy, to "accept the decision of the electoral commission when it is delivered".
"Fillon made clear it had not been his intention to call into question the UK's rating but to highlight that ratings agencies appeared more focused on economic governance than deficit levels, " the spokesman said.
Mr Fillon, who was prime minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy until his electoral defeat in May, has likened Mr Cope's allies to "a mafia" while his rival has described him as a "sore loser".
BBC: UMP rivals Fillon and Cope called to face-to-face talks
But rumors of a comeback have intensified since the UMP's confused attempt to elect a successor last November, in which both candidates Francois Fillon and Jean-Francois Cope claimed victory amid intraparty squabbling and allegations of vote-rigging.
Both Mr Fillon and Mr Cope accepted the call to the meeting but the latter rejected a request to remove allegedly partisan members of the UMP appeals commission which is due to hear Mr Fillon's complaint.
BBC: UMP rivals Fillon and Cope called to face-to-face talks
According to the ambitious expectations of French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who ordered the prohibition of the designation from all official documents, and French feminists supporting it, the initiative should spread first across Europe and then to the rest of the world.
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