The socialist François Hollande has been elected president of France, according to projections, giving the left control of the Élysée Palace for the first time in a generation.
Mr Hollande won 51.9 per cent of the vote against the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, according to projections from Ipsos for France 2 television. Confirmation of the result set off wild celebrations at the Socialist Party’s headquarters in Paris and emotional scenes among senior party figures.
Not since François Mitterrand’s re-election victory in 1988 has the French left won the presidency. At Place de la Bastille, the Socialists’ traditional gathering point for electoral celebrations, crowd barriers were already laid out this afternoon in anticipation of a Hollande victory.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, in Paris this evening to congratulate Mr Hollande on his win, hailed Mr Hollande’s win was a “very significant event for Europe” and said it would give welcome new impetus to the growth agenda.
“We have been saying that stability and growth go together, you can’t have one without the other, and I think that the election of Hollande will significantly accelerate that agenda,” said Mr Gilmore. He is in Paris in his capacity as leader of the Labour Party, which belongs to the same European political group as the French Socialist Party.
The result is a comprehensive defeat for Mr Sarkozy, who becomes only the second sitting French president to be denied a second term in the past 50 years. It is expected to bring his political career to an end.
The outcome leaves the Socialist Party well placed to win a majority of seats in the lower house in legislative elections next month. If it achieved that, the left would have control of the Élysée Palace and both houses of parliament for the first time.
Mr Hollande’s comfortable margin of victory gives him greater authority as he prepares to initiate talks on re-orienting Europe’s response to the sovereign debt crisis towards economic growth.
He is expected to speak by phone this evening to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom he describes as France’s most important partner, and could visit Berlin as early as this week.
Dr Merkel supported Mr Sarkozy’s campaign and refused to receive Mr Hollande in Berlin before the election, but informal contacts have already taken place between the two sides.
