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| Francois Hollande |
This change in France hasn't come as a surprise to many as Sarkozy was facing a decline in his well as he came near to the end of his tenure. Banning Veil in the country and taking a leading role in Libyan mission was some of his attempts to regain the popularity, which did not work as expected. Hollande campaign emphasised on being a "normal" President, as opposed to Sarkozy's sometimes controversial presidential style. The new president has come with some good objectives:
- To resorb France's national debt by 2017 (cancel tax cuts for the wealthy and tax exemptions introduced by Sarkozy)
- To raise income tax by 75% for incomes beyond one million euros
- To bring back the retirement age to 60 years old, for people who have worked 42 years (full pension)
- To recreate the 60 000 jobs in public education, which were cut by Sarkozy
- To give the legal right to marry and adopt to homesexual couples
- To give the right to vote in local election to the residents without European Union passports, but who have atleast 5 years of legal residency
- To regulate rises in rent
- To use punitive measures in compelling towns and cities to apply the 2000 Law on Solidarity and Urban Renewal
- To provide public lands for the building of social housing, provided by the above mentioned Law.
Some of the declaration which he made:
"I will be President for all French people".
"Everyone in the Republic will be treated on equal rights and duties."
France and Germany was responsible for handling the Europe's financial problem, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Nikolas Sarkozy shared good relations, it is now to see how they perform as now Spain has cashflow trouble, Italy is struggling to stay afloat and France, whose performance has gone down, is facing increasing unemployment rate, growing disparity with Germany and alarms of possible downgrade of its rating.
"I spoke in recent months about the French dream: it is our history, it is our future. It is simply called progress!"
“I would like to wish Hollande that France cope successfully with all of its trials”, - said Nikolas Sarkozy who is being replaced by Hollande.
Head of the Russian Federal Agency for the CIS Affairs Konstantin Kosachev said in a statement that the winning of the French presidential election by Socialist Francois Hollande will favourably affect Russian-French relations. Kosachev feels that Russia and France share cultural interests and enjoy extensive civil society contacts [Source: Hollande’s victory to favourably affect relations with Russia – official].
Hollande has come at the time when Europe is probably going through one of the worst time. Unemployment is rising and hitting its highest level ever in Europe since the creation of the euro. Hollande's campaign calls to rewrite not so old, long-negotiated EU fiscal pact to have budgetary discipline, causing uneasiness in the markets and which could disturb German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
However, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has given indication that Germany is willing to work with the new President of France positively. "We will work together on a growth pact".
Now, the question is how will his victory influence the economic future of Europe as a whole. The Economist had earlier labelled him as "the rather dangerous Monsieur Hollande." However, Thomas Klau of European Council of Foreign Relations said, Europe should have no real reason to fear Hollande's victory.
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