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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