François Hollande elected President of France; Nicolas Sarkozy ousted after one term

It’s offi­cial: the République française will soon have a new leader.

The peo­ple of France oust­ed incum­bent pres­i­dent Nico­las Sarkozy today in a runoff elec­tion, deny­ing the Union pour un Mou­ve­ment Pop­u­laire (Union for a Pop­u­lar Move­ment) leader a sec­ond term in favor of Social­ist François Hol­lande, who has called for more invest­ment in France’s pub­lic ser­vices and few­er aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures. The close­ly-watched elec­tion is expect­ed to have sig­nif­i­cant reper­cus­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Europe, which is still try­ing to shake off a fis­cal crisis.

“My dear coun­try­men: On this day, May the 6th, the French have cho­sen change, and have elect­ed me to the Pres­i­den­cy of the Repub­lic,” Hol­lande told sup­port­ers in a vic­to­ry speech in Tulle. “I am keen­ly aware of the hon­or done to me and of the great­ness of the task ahead of me. And, here before you, I under­take to serve my coun­try — with the devo­tion and the exem­plar­i­ness required of this high office.”

Sarkozy, mean­while, con­ced­ed defeat. He accept­ed “total respon­si­bil­i­ty” for the results and wished Hol­lande well, acknowl­edg­ing him as the Pres­i­dent-elect of the Repub­lic. “My involve­ment in the life of my coun­try will be dif­fer­ent now,” Sarkozy told sup­port­ers. “But time will nev­er weak­en the ties between us.”

For those unfa­mil­iar with French pol­i­tics, Sarkozy’s par­ty, the Union pour un Mou­ve­ment Pop­u­laire (UMP), and Hol­lan­de’s par­ty, the Par­ti social­iste (PS), are the two major polit­i­cal par­ties in France. They are, to some extent, the equiv­a­lent of the Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ties here in the Unit­ed States, though not quite as dom­i­nant (France’s minor par­ties are stronger than Amer­i­ca’s minor par­ties). Ide­o­log­i­cal­ly, the UMP is con­sid­ered to be right wing (though not far right) and the PS is con­sid­ered to be left wing (though not far left).

The just-con­clud­ed pres­i­den­tial elec­tion has been char­ac­ter­ized by many observers as a ref­er­en­dum on Nico­las Sarkozy, who came to pow­er five years ago and, for a time, enjoyed wide­spread sup­port. His pop­u­lar­i­ty has since tanked, in part due to his embrace of inef­fec­tive aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures as a response to the the world­wide finan­cial cri­sis and accom­pa­ny­ing eco­nom­ic downturn.

The White House announced that Pres­i­dent Oba­ma had already reached out to Pres­i­dent-elect Hol­lande. Accord­ing to Press Sec­re­tary Jay Car­ney, the two men spoke briefly by tele­phone after the out­come of the elec­tion became known.

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma called Pres­i­dent-elect Fran­cois Hol­lande of France to con­grat­u­late him after the results of the French elec­tion were announced today. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma indi­cat­ed that he looks for­ward to work­ing close­ly with Mr. Hol­lande and his gov­ern­ment on a range of shared eco­nom­ic and secu­ri­ty chal­lenges. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma not­ed that he will wel­come Pres­i­dent-elect Hol­lande to Camp David for the G‑8 Sum­mit and to Chica­go for the NATO Sum­mit lat­er this month, and pro­posed that they meet before­hand at the White House. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and Pres­i­dent-elect Hol­lande each reaf­firmed the impor­tant and endur­ing alliance between the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States and France.

Hol­lande has also spo­ken with the demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-cho­sen leader of the Unit­ed King­dom, a spokesper­son for Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron con­firmed:

The Prime Min­is­ter called Pres­i­dent-Elect Hol­lande this evening and con­grat­u­lat­ed him on his vic­to­ry. They both look for­ward to work­ing very close­ly togeth­er in the future and build­ing on the very close rela­tion­ship that already exists between the UK and France.

Hol­lande, who will be sworn into office very soon (pos­si­bly a week from tomor­row) is expect­ed to trav­el to Berlin to meet with Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Angela Merkel. Merkel, like Cameron, had sup­port­ed Sarkozy’s reelec­tion cam­paign, but will now have to get used to work­ing with Hol­lande, who will be France’s pres­i­dent for at least the next five years. Sarkozy’s defeat isn’t the only loss Merkel will be rumi­nat­ing over dur­ing the course of the next few days; her own par­ty is per­form­ing poor­ly in local elec­tions today in Ger­many.