Reformer Sarkozy Wins French Presidency
By Angela Doland
Agence France Press
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Philippe Wojazer / Reuters
Nicolas Sarkozy, France's newly-elected president, reacts after the election’s results are announced in Paris on Sunday.
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PARIS — French president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy plans to waste no time pushing through a weighty package of pro-market, anti-crime reforms — but the first battle is winning a majority in parliament in new elections next month. Sarkozy, a pro-American conservative and an immigrant’s son, defeated Socialist Segolene Royal by 53.06 percent to 46.94 percent with an 84 percent voter turnout, according to final results released early Monday. The win gave Sarkozy a strong mandate for his vision of France’s future: He wants to free up labor markets, calls France’s 35-hour work week “absurd” and plans tougher measures on crime and immigration. “The people of France have chosen change,” Sarkozy told cheering supporters in a victory speech that sketched out a stronger global role for France and renewed partnership with the United States. A headline Monday in Les Echos newspaper, a financial daily, read: “President Sarkozy: a wide majority for reforming the country in depth.” Still, his task will not be easy. Sarkozy is certain to face resistance from powerful unions to his plans to make the French work more and make it easier for companies to hire and fire. Sarkozy planned to stay out of the public eye for a few days, said Francois Fillon, an adviser often cited as a candidate for prime minister. Sarkozy “will retire to somewhere in France to unwind a little ... and to start organizing and preparing his teams,” Fillon told TF1 television. The new president plans to take over power from outgoing leader Jacques Chirac on May 16. Fillon said Sarkozy’s new government would be installed May 19 or 20. The election left little time for celebrating: Legislative elections are slated for June 10 and 17, and Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party needs a majority to keep his mandate for reforms. A win by the left would bring “cohabitation” — an awkward power-sharing with a leftist prime minister — which would put a stop to his plans. Sarkozy, 52, has drawn up a whirlwind agenda for his first 100 days in office and plans to put big reforms before parliament at an extraordinary session in July. One bill would make overtime pay tax-free to encourage people to work more. Another would put in place tougher sentencing for repeat offenders, and still another would toughen up the criteria for immigrants trying to bring their families to France. On election night, scattered violence was reported around France. There had been fears that the impoverished suburban housing projects, home to Arab and African immigrants and their French-born children, would erupt again at the victory of a man who labeled those responsible for rioting in 2005 as “scum.” That abrasive style raised doubts over whether Sarkozy, himself the son of a Hungarian refugee, could unite a politically polarized, increasingly diverse nation. Late Sunday, small bands of youths hurled stones and other objects at police at the Place de la Bastille in Paris. Some bared their backsides at riot officers behind their shields, and police fired volleys of tear gas. Two police unions said firebombs targeted schools and recreation centers in several towns in the Essonne region just south of Paris. In Sarkozy’s victory speech, he reached out to those he has alienated in the past, promising to be president “of all the French, without exception.” The White House said U.S. President George Bush had called to congratulate Sarkozy, who is largely untested in foreign policy but reached out to the United States in his victory speech, an indication of his desire to break from the trans-Atlantic tension of the Chirac era. Sarkozy also made it clear that France would remain an independent voice. The United States, he declared, can “count on our friendship,” but he added that “friendship means accepting that friends can have different opinions.” He urged the United States to take the lead on climate change and said the issue would be a priority for France. “A great nation, like the United States, has a duty not to block the battle against global warming but — on the contrary — to take the lead in this battle, because the fate of the whole of humanity is at stake,” Sarkozy said.
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