Sarkozy wins mandate for sweeping reforms

France’s president-in-waiting is beginning the task of forming his government today, after voters swept him to power.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the reform-minded son of a Hungarian immigrant, won a clear mandate to reinvigorate the sluggish nation by overhauling a restrictive economic system that many believe can no longer thrive in an age of globalisation.

The convincing election victory yesterday over Socialist Segolene Royal by 53.06% to 46.94%, according to final results released early today – promised to chart a new course for France.

Sarkozy is friendly towards the United States, has staked out a tough stance against crime and on immigration, and seems more sincere in his quest for free markets than any leader France has had in generations.

“The people of France have chosen change,” Sarkozy said in a victory speech before hundreds of cheering supporters.

Aware of the fears his words and plans inspire in many voters, Sarkozy pledged to be president “of all the French, without exception”.

Sarkozy aide Francois Fillon, a favourite to be the prime minister, said that for the next few days, Sarkozy planned “to withdraw to somewhere in France to decompress a little” and to prepare his government team.

Sarkozy, 52, inherits a nation that appears to be losing faith in itself, paralysed by worries over globalisation, bitterness at American dominance and its own diminished impact on world events, and saddled with tensions in impoverished, immigrant-heavy suburbs that exploded in riots in 2005.

Many fear those suburbs will again grow restive after the election of a man who called troublemakers in the housing projects “scum”.

Such an abrasive style has raised questions about whether Sarkozy could truly unite a nation that is increasingly polarised and diverse.

Scattered election-night violence was reported around France.

Small bands of youths hurled stones and other objects at police at the Place de la Bastille in Paris last night. Some bared their backsides at riot officers behind their shields, and police fired volleys of tear gas. Two police unions said firebombs targeted schools and recreation centres in several towns in the Essonne region just south of Paris.

At the same time, the intense interest in the election – turnout was 84% - underscored the significant role that a re-energised France may yet play.

Voters turned out in massive numbers in rejecting Royal’s gentler vision of France that would have preserved more of the welfare protections the French hold dear, but that many say cannot survive in a globalised age, including a much-debated 35-hour working week that Sarkozy branded “absurd”.

Her programme seemed more in line with the policies pursued under the outgoing Jacques Chirac – who is from Sarkozy’s own party, the Union for a Popular Movement. Chirac held the presidency for 12 years but failed repeatedly to push through reforms in the eurozone’s second-biggest economy after Germany.

Sarkozy will formally take over from Chirac on the very last day of his term, May 16.

Sarkozy, a former interior minister who is largely untested in foreign policy, reached out to the United States in his victory speech, an indication of his desire to break from the Chirac era during which transatlantic ties were testy and at times seemed hostile. But he made it clear that France would remain an independent voice.

The US, he declared, can “count on our friendship”, but he added that “friendship means accepting that friends can have different opinions”. He urged the US to take the lead on climate change and said the issue would be a priority for France.

But for all his determination – the presidency has been a near-lifelong quest - and talk of change, Sarkozy is certain to face resistance to his plans to make the French work more and make it easier for companies to hire and fire. Like Margaret Thatcher in 1980s Britain, he will need to take on formidable unions to enact his reform plans.

Election day showed a renewed French passion for politics, with voter rolls swelled by record numbers. Turnout was boosted by the two candidates’ dynamism and the high stakes for a nation losing clout to nations like China and India and even neighbours Britain and Germany.

The 74-year-old Chirac’s handover of power ushers in a new generation, a president who has no memory of the Second World War. Sarkozy waged a high-octane internet campaign the likes of which France had never seen.

Royal, too, offered voters something different – an unmarried mother of four with unconventional ideas of how to be a socialist. Her defeat could throw her Socialist Party into disarray, with splits between those who say it must remain firm to its left-wing traditions and others who want a shift to the political centre like socialist parties elsewhere in Europe.

Conceding minutes after polls closed, Royal said her campaign had launched a “profound renewal of political life, of its methods and of the left... What we tried to do for France will bear fruit, I am sure”.