PARIS — François Hollande swept into
office on Sunday, becoming the first Socialist to be elected president of France since François
Mitterrand left office in 1995.
French voters may not like the belt-tightening, but
both Mr. Hollande and Mr. Sarkozy had promised to balance the budget in the
next five years. Domestically, the vote was considered to be a rejection of Mr.
Sarkozy and his effort to appeal to the voters of the far right National Front.
Mr. Sarkozy is the first incumbent to be ousted since Valéry Giscard d’Estaing
lost to Mr. Mitterrand in 1981.
With about half the votes counted, preliminary results
released by the Interior Ministry shortly after the last polling stations
closed at 8 p.m. showed Mr. Hollande
had secured about 51 percent of the vote, while Mr. Sarkozy, of the
center-right Union for a Popular Movement, had about 49
percent. The results were slightly closer than expected.
“François Hollande is the president of the republic; he
must be respected,” Mr. Sarkozy said in a gracious concession speech shortly
after the polls closed. “I want to wish him good luck in the midst of these
tests.”
Mr. Sarkozy thanked “the millions of French who voted
for me,” but said he accepted “total responsibility” for Sunday’s results.
“My involvement in the life of my country will be
different now,” Mr. Sarkozy said. “But time will never weaken the ties between
us.”
Speaking earlier to members of his party, Mr. Sarkozy,
who campaigned energetically to the end, told them to “remain united” and not
give in to division. He said he would not lead the party into June’s
legislative elections but said they were “winnable.”
“I become a citizen among you,” he added.
The presidential election in France
and the parliamentary vote in Greece
on Sunday have been closely watched in European capitals, particularly in Berlin,
where Chancellor Angela Merkel has led the drive to cure the debt and banking
crisis in the euro zone with deep budget cuts and caps on spending.
Mr. Hollande will make an early visit to Berlin.
Ms. Merkel spent Sunday watching the results of state elections in
Schleswig-Holstein, where exit polls indicated that her party was losing a
fight to hold on to the state Parliament. With another election coming on May
13 in North Rhine-Westphalia
State, Ms. Merkel is not viewed as
having much room domestically to compromise on crucial economic issues.
Mr. Sarkozy is the latest of a string of European
incumbents, from both the left and the right, to lose in a larger popular
revolt against budget-cutting and tax increased during a time of recession and
high unemployment. Mr. Hollande has said he intends to give “a new direction to
Europe,” demanding that a European Union treaty limiting
debt be expanded to include measures to produce economic growth.
“How Hollande handles Merkel could make or break his
prospects for the next five years,” said François Heisbourg of the Foundation for
Strategic Research in Paris. “He
has favorable circumstances, but she has domestic politics, too.”
Ms. Merkel is considered likely to agree to only
symbolic changes in the fiscal pact — not renegotiating it so much as adding
clauses about growth.
Voters in Greece
on Sunday appeared to radically redraw the political
map there, bolstering the far left and neo-Nazi right in a wave of protest
against the dominant political parties that they blame for the country’s
economic collapse.
The shift in France
could prove to be more crucial. While crowds in Paris
cheered Mr. Hollande’s victory, investors were more cautious in their reactions.
They are concerned that Mr. Hollande might choose to spend more money to jump-start the
economy rather than move ahead with labor and business reforms that economists
say France
sorely needs to improve its competitiveness to prevent it from getting caught
in the euro zone crisis.
“Markets will not attack France
right away,” said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a research fellow at the Peterson
Institute for International Economics in Washington.
“But there is a risk that if Mr. Hollande does not act early on, France
will become the next sick man of Europe.”
Mr. Hollande’s victory will also have important
implications for the right in France,
with Mr. Sarkozy’s party already split between the prime minister, François
Fillon, and the leader of the Union for a Popular
Movement, Jean-François Copé.
The strong showing of Marine Le Pen of the far-right
National Front party, who got nearly 18 percent of the vote in the first round
of the presidential election, is a serious threat to Mr. Sarkozy’s party.
It will have to decide whether Mr. Sarkozy will lead it
into the parliamentary elections in June and make a deal with Ms. Le Pen for
seats in the National Assembly. If not, Mr. Sarkozy’s party could lose up to
100 seats, political experts say.
Mr. Hollande campaigned on “change” as well as a more
traditional presidency in which he would set the main policies but not
micromanage day-to-day affairs, as Mr. Sarkozy did. But Mr. Sarkozy was
decisive, especially in times of crisis, and many question whether Mr. Hollande
can do the same.
For the French, “it is a leap of faith that shows there
is a strong will for a different policy course, not just at the national but at
the E.U. level as well,” said Paul Vallet, a professor of history and political
science at the Institute of Political
Studies in Paris.
Europe’s debt-troubled nations
also hope that Mr. Hollande will help them buy them more time to make economic
adjustments.
“Some countries in Europe are
banking on that,” Mr. Vallet said. “Greece
is hoping very much for a Hollande victory, hoping that he will side with them
on loosening the fiscal austerity plan.” Spain,
too, could be hoping for France
to be the point man with Germany
on this issue, he said.
Mr. Hollande has called for euro zone bonds to finance
infrastructure projects, for a financial transaction tax and for a loosening of
regulations that would allow unused European Union structural funds to be spent
on growth. Ms. Merkel can accept all these ideas, German officials have said,
but she will not budge on loosening debt limits or allowing the European
Central Bank to ease up on inflation or to loan directly to governments.
Domestically, Mr. Hollande has promised to raise taxes
on big corporations and to increase the tax rate for those earning more than 1
million euros, or about $1.3 million, a year to 75 percent. He says that over
the next five years, he will spend about $26 billion on programs and increase
taxes by about $38 billion in order to balance the budget by 2017. Mr. Hollande
has vowed to raise the minimum wage, hire 60,000 more teachers over five years
and lower the retirement age from 62 to 60 for manual workers who started work
as teenagers.
Voter turnout was about 81 percent of the 46 million
registered voters, down from the 84 percent who participated in the last
presidential election five years ago.
Many voters, casting their ballots under gray skies and
intermittent rain, expressed a strong desire for change and a better economic
future.
Nicole Hirsch, a 60-year-old retiree in the
working-class 20th Arrondissement of Paris, said she was voting for Mr.
Hollande in the hope that he would “bring the change that France
needs.”
Pierre Marcus, a 59-year-old civil servant, said his
vote for Mr. Hollande was motivated by the hope that a Socialist government
would take steps to promote economic growth and soften the blow of the crisis
on average citizens.
“Five years of Sarkozy dismantled social institutions,”
Mr. Marcus said. “I think that Hollande will reverse French politics in terms
of employment and social issues.”
Mr. Sarkozy, he said, had “ruled as a monarch” and
“increased inequalities in the country.”
Mr. Marcus compared the last five years to the period
during the reign of King Louis Philippe in the 19th century.
“The bourgeoisie got much richer, and the peasants and
workers lived in extreme misery,” Mr. Marcus said.
Sebastien Modat, 38, who works in marketing, said
“Hollande had the power to bring people together.”
“The right was compelled to take up its traditional
topics, creating tension among people,” he said. But the main question, he
added, “is how we are going to resume growth.”
He voted for Mr. Sarkozy five years ago, but on Sunday
he cast a blank ballot, which are not counted. “I hope there will be a change
in mentalities and more consensus,” he said.
Mathieu François, 48, an entrepreneur, said he had
voted for a centrist candidate in the first round but for Mr. Hollande in the
second. He said the trick would be to restart the economy without forgetting
the poor and disadvantaged. “Sarkozy had favored the rich and austerity
instead,” he said.
His vote for Mr. Hollande, he said, was “a bet that
this can work, that in a period of crisis, a political change can be
favorable.” France,
after all, is neither Greece
nor Spain. he
said. “I have confidence in the fundamentals of my country.”