Sarkozy wins presidential elections

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Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST

May. 6, 2007

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Energized French voters elected reform-minded Nicolas Sarkozy as their new president on Sunday by a comfortable winning margin, preliminary results showed.

With more than half of the vote counted, the conservative Sarkozy was scoring just over 53 percent to a little more than 46 percent for Socialist Segolene Royal, according to the Interior Ministry. Polling agencies also had Sarkozy winning 53 percent of the vote compared to 47 for Royal, amid massive turnout of 85 percent.

"The people of France have chosen change," Sarkozy said in a victory speech. The charismatic but divisive figure pledged to be "president of all the French."

Royal immediately conceded defeat. "I gave it all my efforts, and will continue," she told supporters. "Something has risen up that will not stop."

Sarkozy inherits from Jacques Chirac a nation down on itself, its wages stagnant and economy lagging behind its peers, its voice in the world fading, and frustration simmering in impoverished, immigrant-heavy suburbs.

Police quietly braced for election night violence. Settling those tensions, which fueled the 2005 riots in such neighborhoods, will be one of Sarkozy's greatest challenges as president.

Voting day showed a renewed French passion for politics, with voter rolls swelled by record numbers. Turnout was boosted by the two candidates' dynamism and the high stakes for a nation losing global clout to nations like China and India and even neighbors Britain and Germany.

Royal failed to persuade the French to put a woman in charge for the first time, and opted for more vigorous reform over her pledges of softer change that would preserve the welfare protections that many French hold dear.

For all his determination - the presidency has been a near-lifelong quest for Sarkozy - and talk of change, he is certain to face resistance to his plans to make the French work more and make it easier for companies to hire and fire.

All of Europe will be watching to see if succeeds. He comes from a conservative camp that has held the presidency for 12 years but failed in reform of the euro zone's second-biggest economy.

The 74-year-old Chirac's handover of power, which much take place before May 17, also marks a handover to a new generation, one that has no memory of World War II. Sarkozy waged a high-octane Internet campaign the likes of which France had never seen.

Royal, too, offered voters something different - an unmarried mother of four with unconventional ideas of how to be a Socialist. Her defeat could throw her party into disarray, with splits between those who say it must remain firm to its leftist traditions and others who want a shift to the political center like socialist parties elsewhere in Europe.

 

Sarkozy's election victory marred by riots

Last updated at 17:36pm on 7th May 2007

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Street violence took some of the shine off victory in the French elections for new president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Far-left activists had running battles with police across France as 270 people were taken in for questioning and 367 parked vehicles were torched

 

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• VIDEO: French riots (Windows Media Player)
• VIDEO: French riots (Real version)
• Sarkozy's French revolution

 

Riot police fired tear gas into a crowd gathered at the Place de la Bastille in Paris as news of Sarkozy's victory came through.

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Trouble on the streets of France following Nicolas Sarkozy's election win

 

Small bands of youths hurled stones and other objects at police and bared their backsides at riot officers.

Other fights with the police broke out in Toulouse, Lyon, Rennes and Nantes.

Two police unions said firebombs targeted schools and recreation centres in several towns in the Essonne region just south of Paris.

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More than 350 cars were set on fire across France after Sarkozy's victory was confirmed

 

BFM TV described rioters as "militant anarchists" apparently upset by the victory of a man of the right.

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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."

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Flaming debris from the Paris riots

 

That abrasive style raised doubts over whether Sarkozy, himself the son of a Hungarian refugee, could unite a politically polarized, increasingly diverse nation.

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Cars were overturned, many were set ablaze

 

He is widely unpopular among youths from the projects who showed their preference for Sarkozy's Socialist rival, Segolene Royal, in the first-round vote earlier in the month.

 

PARIS (Reuters) - Hundreds of people were arrested in France overnight in clashes between police and protesters angry over conservative Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory in Sunday’s presidential election, police said.

Official figures released on Monday said demonstrators set fire to 730 cars and injured 78 policemen across France, with 592 people arrested in the violent protests against the tough-talking former interior minister.

The tally was revised sharply upwards after an initial report appeared to downplay the clashes and was at odds with local police figures and eyewitness reports, which suggested widespread troubles in numerous French cities.