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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