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France: Hollande Ousts Sarkozy

France: Hollande Ousts Sarkozy
folder_openInternational News access_time11 years ago
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Francois Hollande was elected France's first Socialist president in nearly two decades on Sunday, dealing a humiliating defeat to incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and shaking up European politics.
France: Hollande Ousts Sarkozy
The result will have major implications for Europe as it struggles to emerge from a financial crisis and for France, the Eurozone's second-largest economy and a nuclear-armed permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Hollande won the vote with about 52 percent, according to several estimates from polling firms based on ballot samples, becoming France's first Socialist president since Francois Mitterrand left office in 1995.

Following his victory, Hollande thanked his supporters for electing him president and promised to be a leader to unite the whole country.
"On this May 6, the French have just chosen change in bearing me to the office of president," the 57-year-old candidate declared before a wildly cheering crowd in his hometown of Tulle, in the rural Correze region.

Hollande said that he wanted to be judged over his five-year term with regard to how well he advanced the cause of fairness in society and the fate of the young, many of whom face unemployment and exclusion in France.
"It is the French dream that I will strive to make whole during the mandate that has just been given me," he said.

Hollande also warned fellow European leaders that he would push ahead with his vow to refocus EU fiscal efforts from austerity to growth.
"Europe is watching us," Hollande told cheering supporters.

"I am sure that when the result was announced, in many European countries there was relief, hope and the notion that finally austerity can no longer be the only option," he said.

After the speech, the president-elect was due to fly back to Paris for a larger victory rally in the Place de la Bastille, a sacred space for the left, and he is expected to take over power from Sarkozy on May 15.
For his part, the defeated Sarkozy urged leaders of his right-wing UMP party to remain united after his defeat.

However, Sarkozy warned he would not lead it into June's parliamentary elections, according to political sources present at a meeting at his headquarters.



Source: News agencies, Edited by moqawama.org

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