French president François Hollande promises 'a new start' for Europe
The 57-year-old rural MP and self-styled Mr Normal, a moderate social democrat from the centre of the Socialist party, is France's first leftwing president for 17 years. Projections from early counts, released by French television, put him on 51.9% and Nicolas Sarkozy on 48.1%, the Guardian reports.
His victory is a boost to the left in a continent that has gradually swung right since the economic crisis broke four years ago.
From the town of Tulle in his rural heartland of Corrèze in southwest France, Hollande declared victory. "May 6 should be a great date for our country, a new start for Europe, a new hope for the world," he said. "I'm sure in a lot of European countries there is relief, hope that at last austerity is no longer inevitable."
He said his mission was to go to European leaders to demand measures for "growth, jobs and prosperity". Hollande's first move as president will be to push Germany to renegotiate Europe's budget discipline pact to include a clause on growth.
Hollande said France had voted for change, but he had a heavy responsibility to drag the country out of economic crisis. Vowing that France would no longer be fractured, divided or riven by discrimination, or those in the poor high-rise suburbs and abandoned rural areas cast aside, he said: "No child of the republic will be abandoned."
Sarkozy, defeated after one term in office, became the 11th European leader, including Gordon Brown, to be swept from power since the economic crisis in 2008. He conceded defeat at a gathering of his party activists at the Mutualité in central Paris, urging them from the stage to stop booing Hollande. "I carry all the responsibility for this defeat," he said. He had spoken to Hollande to congratulate him.
"From the bottom of my heart I want France to succeed with the challenges it faces. It is something much greater than us, France. This evening we must think exclusively of France." After 35 years in politics and 10 years at the top of government, he would now become a simple "Frenchman among the French".
The defeat of the most unpopular French president ever to run for re-election was not simply the result of the global financial crisis or eurozone debt turmoil. It was also down to the intense public dislike of the man seen as "President of the Rich" who had swept to victory in 2007 with a huge mandate for change. Most French people felt he had failed to deliver his promises, and he was criticised for his ostentatious display of wealth, favouring the rich and leaving behind him more than 2.8 million unemployed. Political analysts said anti-Sarkozyism had become a cultural phenomenon in France. The turnout was high, estimated at around 80%.
Hollande is the first Socialist president since Francois Mitterrand's re-election in 1988. Thousands of cheering supporters, including many intellectuals and arts figures, massed at Paris's Place de la Bastille, a flashpoint of the 1789 French revolution, where the left celebrated Mitterrand's first historic victory in 1981.
Details also at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/06/francois-hollande-becomes-french-president
