Sarkozy Wins Presidency With Mandate To Change France's Course
May 7, 2007

By Axel Krause

Decisively, with a broad mandate to accelerate modernization of the French economy and improve relations with its allies, notably the United States, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy on May 6th was elected to a five-year term as France’s next president, defeating Socialist Ségolène Royal – 53.06 % to 46.94%. The results confirm months of polls and surveys that favored him.

Amid congratulatory, supportive  messages from, among others,  President George W. Bush,  German Chancellor Angela Merkel, both longtime, staunch admirers, and Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, Sarkozy told cheering supporters:”The French people have decided to break with the ideas, habits and behavior of the past,” an implied  reference to the long, controversial presidency of Jacques Chirac, first elected in 1995, and who will turn over the Elysée Palace to Sarkozy May 16.

“I want to rehabilitate work, law-and-order, morality, respect…the French people have chosen change,” Sarkozy continued, adding “I believe profoundly in European construction and tonight, France is back in Europe.” That is a clear reference to France’s rejection of the proposed European Union constitution in 2005 that has paralysed EU dynamism. He went on to pledge friendship and admiration for his “American friends.”

But, he added in a 10-minute address, trans-Atlantic friendship is also “accepting that one’s friends can think differently,” meaning the long-cherished French right to avoid what he has termed “submission” to U.S. policies; he criticized Washington’s complacency on global warming and has firmly opposed Turkey’s bid for membership in the European Union, which President Bush firmly supports. As an implied alternative to Turkey and others in the area, Sarkozy urged “the people of the Mediterranean” Sea to help build what he termed a “Mediterranean Union,” which could act as a bridge of some kind between Europe and Africa.

During the past few weeks of exhausting, tense campaigning, the hard-driving, 52-year-old president-elect also proposed potentially-controversial, protectionist-sounding EU policies regarding trade and future military procurement in areas such as aircraft, satellites and missile systems, which others in the 27-nation bloc may modify or reject, and which could add to already-tense trans-Atlantic disputes over such issues as farm subsidies and world trade liberalization.

Meantime, smiling and radiant – her hopes for becoming France’s first woman president dashed – 53-year-old Royal pledged to continue leading the Socialists and allied leftist parties in the two-round legislative election June10-17. “The voters have spoken…you can count on me to deepen the renovation of the left and to seek new convergences,”she told supporters shortly after the results were announced.

The reasons for her defeat, many said, stemmed from lack of a clear, coherent, leftist theme, while failing to attract large numbers of centrists and female voters; (only 48% of women voters supported Royal, compared to 52% who cast their ballots for Sarkozy) an often fumbling, sometimes poorly-prepared response to issues, notably on complex issues related to defense and foreign relations; and in the final hours of the campaign warning, in desperate tones, that riots would break out in the event of a Sarkozy victory, which proved greatly exaggerated and, some supporters said, counterproductive.

Sternly responding to her, the influential, and popular former Socialist Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who had also sought the presidential nomination, said Sunday night that the left had simply failed to keep up with and adjust to the times. “Never was the left so weak, because it has still not renovated itself…in a world which is changing, people do not want the solutions to globalization that have been offered so far by the left.”

Indeed, some Socialist insiders told Transatlantic that the chances were strong that a three-way battle was emerging within the party for control, pitting Royal and her supporters against those of Strauss-Kahn and his longtime rival, former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, who actively opposed ratification of the EU constitution and urged an even stronger shift leftward both in France and elsewhere in the EU.

That may prove an uphill struggle, considering that the majority of leaders in EU member states and the European Commission are from conservative or right-wing camps, and that Sarkozy’s  victory confirms another strong commitment to a conservative, pro-business, supply-side, labor-flexible economic policy and streamlining of government and work-rules in order to make a dent in high levels of unemployment.  Moreover, Sarkozy’s highly-likely choice for prime minister is Francois Fillon, a senator, close adviser, and a former staunchly-conservative social affairs and education minister, who is expected to be named as soon as Sarkozy, following a brief working vacation, enters the Elysée Palace as president May 16.

Meantime, according to sources close to Sarkozy, either Chirac’s former Prime Minister Alain Juppé, or the current Defense Minister Michéle Alliot-Marie, may become foreign minister, and Michel Barner, a former foreign minister, may take her job. Half of the 15 ministerial-level cabinet jobs in Sarkozy’s incoming government will go to women, he has pledged; others being mentioned include Christine Lagarde, outgoing foreign trade minister and formerly head of the executive committee of the Chicago-based law firm Baker&McKenzie and Anne Lauvergeon, a former senior adviser to Socialist President Francois Mitterrand and since 2001, the CEO of France’s nuclear conglomerate Areva.

With the Washington-based corresponent of the French daily Le Monde reporting Monday that, in the short term, Paris-Washington relations will be a honeymoon, sources close to Sarkozy confirmed that his first, important official trip as president would be to Berlin for discussions with Merkel. On the agenda is the relaunching of negotiations for a new EU treaty which they both support, but with differing approaches on specifics, and could lead to a decision for a full-scale negotiation among the 25 other EU members at the next EU summit meeting June 21-22 to be chaired by Merkel as Germany’s six-month, rotating presidency comes to an end, to be followed by Portugal.

But as the correspondent, Corine Lesnes, cautioned, mainly with regard to trans-Atlantic relations, “long term, the perspectives are less certain.”

Axel Krause, Paris-based contributing editor of Transatlantic, believes the campaign now moving into its decisive phase could contain many surprises, such as shifting alliances, closer insights into the candidates’ personalities and harder-hitting, even below-the-belt campaigning, including an acceleration of smear tactics. The campaign, as it winds down, he adds, may also provide some idea of who might be France’s next prime minister and occupy key cabinet posts in foreign affairs, finance and defense.