Sarkozy Is New President

Nicolas Sarkozy today took over for Jacques Chirac and is now the President of France. Sarkozy promised a lot of changes, and he will act as quickly as possible to implement them.

There are elections for the French legislature in about a month (the French don't vote for other offices at the same time as voting for President as is done in the U.S.), and this will be important for Sarkozy if he is to garner the support to implement those reforms. He has already had discussions with union leaders, but it will be interesting to see how much the powerful unions will go along with. It is hard to imagine that they would support some of his ideas, such as only hiring one new government employee for every two who retire or leave the job. It will be an interesting six months on the French political scene.

Changes are probably looming for the PS (Parti Socialist) as well. They have now lost 3 consecutive Presidential elections, and one would expect changes in the party leadership after the legislative elections. They can’t afford to make any changes beforehand as it would make the party look like it is in disarray just in front of important elections.

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And the winner is--- Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy today was elected to be the next President of France. He won by a margin of approximately 53% vs. about 47% for his opponent, Segolene Royal.

Sarkozy made a point to say some nice words about the U.S. in his rather short acceptance speech shortly after his victory was announced. He said essentially that France will always be the friend of the U.S., although the U.S. needs to understand that friends can sometimes have different opinions. He also urged the U.S. to make an effort to combat global warming. He made friendly overtures to other European countries, Africa, and the Mediterranean countries.

The defeat of Royal and the PS (Parti Socialist) has the party scratching its head, as it, and the other parties on the left of the political spectrum, have obviously not been able to come up with a winning formula since Francois Mitterand left the scene 12 years ago (Sarkozy’s mandate adds another 5 years to that). There will no doubt be changes in both people and ideas in the PS. The fact that they lost to the party of Jacques Chirac, whose popularity ratings are extremely low, and still could not win, does not portend well for the party.

In about a month there will be legislative elections in France, which are done separately from the Presidential race. This will determine the makeup of the National Assembly and the Senate and will go a long way to determine if Sarkozy will have enough support and votes to implement the programs he has been suggesting during the campaign.

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French Presidential Debate

Here's an American's take on the French Presidential debate that took place on Wednesday night between the two candidates in the second round of the elections. One of these two will replace Jacques Chirac as the President of France on Sunday, May 6: French Presidential Debate.

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