Sarkozy’s victory
Sarkozy was elected with 53/54% of the votes over Royal with 46/47%. Definitive results late in the night.
In his first speech as the new President of France, Sarkozy insisted on the need to “go back to work”, to restore authority and order, without leaving anyone on the side and by giving each citizen a sense of belonging to a strong and united community.
The most striking was his reference to the US (unknown, at least to me, in such an after-election speech from a newly elected President), saying that France would always be there when the US would need it, but that being friends should not be equated with always being in agreement. He precisely quoted climate change as the area where US policies were wrong and should change. Pushing the US to change on this will be one of Sarkozy’s priorities.
Then came few words about Europe : Sarkozy insisted on the necessity to have France back in Europe, but also asked France’s european partners to understand French reservations towards some EU’s policies perceived as destructive and not protective enough against effects of globalization. This was a smart signal towards the French who voted “no” to the European constitutional treaty back in 2005 : if he wants to make progress on the European integration field, Sarkozy will indeed have to reconcile all the French on this tricky issue.
Royal gave a 5 minutes speech which the only objective was to make clear that even if she failed, she would stay at the center of the stage on the Socialist side…We understood her words better when we saw some of her socialists fellows, less than 10 minutes after the result, obviously trying to deliver the message she should be out given she lost. One of the most interesting follow-up to the election will indeed be to observe if and how the socialist party will change after such a defeat.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:40 am
One thing saddened me was the fact that France seemed to elect a “super” prime minister. Every single candidate did not propose anything it his/her program except economic measures disregarding mainly and broadly an international approach of the function. The Sarkozy’s victory speech was no exception to that. Climate change is surely any issue, but there’s more than that between France and the US that should be settled (and that hopefully will be). Don’t you think?
Julien
May 9th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
ys, i agree, but presidental elections are almost always about domestic issues and this makes sense at a time when we have pressing economic and social challenges ahead. one can give credit to both sarkozy and royal foe having addressed issues like Turkey and other international issues in several of their speeches. not enough, i agree, but again, the domestic agenda is the priority