The result of the French Presidential election was no great surprise in a way.
In fact, when one considers that most of his first round competitors had endorsed Hollande, outgoing President Sarkozy did well to get 48%, as against the mere 27% he had got in the first round.
The Centrist Bayrou, and the Left Front candidate Melenchon, had both explicitly endorsed Hollande, and the National Front candidate Marine le Pen, most of whose supporters were otherwise trending in Sarkozy’s favour, said she was going to vote for nobody .
The breakdown of the vote is interesting .
Sarkozy did best in a Northern block of territory from Normandy over to the German border in Strasbourg, and Hollande did best in Paris, and in the rest of France, apart from the Riviera.
Unlike the US, where women are more for Obama, and men more for Romney, the two candidates in France got more or less the same level of support from men as from women.
Those with higher educational qualifications voted more for Sarkozy ( 54%/46%). So also did those who were financially better off.
Employees were 54/46 in favour of Hollande, whereas business and self employed were 58/42 for Sarkozy.
AGE GROUPS VOTED DIFFERENTLY
The age distribution of support was most marked.
Those under 24 were 59/41 for Hollande.
The 25 to 34 and the 50 to 59 age groups were for Hollande.
But the 35 to 49 age group, and the over 60s, favoured Sarkozy.
SO DID PEOPLE OF VARYING RELIGIOUS VIEWS
The most remarkable cleavage of all was on the index of religious practice.
Practising Catholics were 73/27 for Sarkozy.
Protestants were 61/39 for Sarkozy.
But those who said they had no religion were 66/34 for Hollande.
Muslims supported Hollande by a margin of 93 to 7! Sarkozy’s anti immigrant rhetoric and his talk about strengthening borders may have won him support from elderly voters, but it may make it difficult for his party to win Muslim votes in future elections and they are a very important voting bloc in France.
HOLLANDE IS ALSO COMMITTED TO AUSTERITY
Some may think that the election of Hollande will mean an end to so called austerity policies in France. In fact ,he gave that impression himself during the campaign. Outside France, some people have seized on Hollande’s campaign rhetoric as a sign that borrowing does not have to be reduced, and budgets do not have to be balanced. They are mistaken.
In fact, if those who voted for him read his programme closely they would see that he is committed to getting the French budget deficit down to 3% of GDP by 2013, and to eliminating it altogether by 2017. That simply cannot be done without austerity, at least in France itself.
Of course a little less austerity IN GERMANY might help achieve that goal, if it meant that more Germans bought French goods, or took their holidays in France. But even that is not guaranteed.
France’s big problem is a poor export performance. Whereas Spanish manufactured exports are at 108% of the level they were at in 1999, French exports are now at only 72% of their 1999 level. This is not, it seems , because French wages are too high, but rather that French companies have not innovated enough.
Meanwhile the French national debt is at its highest level ever, apart from the peaks it reached after the two world wars.
Hollande is committed to increasing the corporation tax on big companies to 35%, and reducing the tax on small companies to 15%. This would create and incentive to companies to stay small, which may not help the French export effort much.
He is also committed to employing more teachers. This will be difficult to reconcile with his plans to eliminate the budget deficit.
MEANWHILE HE HAS TO FIGHT ANOTHER ELECTION………
The immediate task facing President Hollande is that of winning a majority in the National Assembly. This may mean that he will avoid facing really difficult choices until June, when the Assembly elections are due, and stay in campaign mode until then.
His difficulty is that the financial markets may not give him the space in which to do that. If the markets feel that, in the medium term, the French budget deficit is going to rise faster than that of Germany, interest rates on French bonds will rise faster than those on German bonds . That could create problems for the euro, something to which President Hollande is committed.
AND DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM OF GREECE
The Greek election result poses an even more immediate problem.
Greeks favour staying in the euro, but do not favour the conditions on which they can access funds provided by the taxpayers of other euro area countries.
These conditions involve reforming wage agreements, cutting pensions ,improving tax collection, and cutting the cost of pharmaceuticals used in the health service. There is also a difficulty that Greece has not done all the things it promised, like eliminating supplementary pensions and getting rid of off budget funds.
The trouble is that things are now so bad in Greece, that many Greek voters convinced themselves that they cannot not get worse, and thus voted for parties that want to reject the conditions on which money is currently being lent to Greece to keep its government functioning.
Unfortunately, things can get much worse in Greece, even than they are now, if taxpayers in other countries decline to provide more funds. A collapse in the banking system, and a disorderly exit from the euro, would be worse than anything Greece has experienced so far.
President Hollande, as a new leader, with a democratic mandate, has a capacity to persuade the Greek people to see sense, to a degree that may not be open to other European leaders, including Chancellor Merkel. President Hollande can be persuasive in Greece because
France favoured Greek entry to the euro.
France never occupied Greece.
French banks have lent to Greece in the past.
Francois Hollande is a man of the left.
All these things give him an authority to speak to the Greek people, at a critical moment for them, and for Europe.
Jeff Winston
Great article. I live in France and don't really favour Hollande's policies. However, you shed some light on how it may not be so "back to the 80s" as we could have expected.
Charles Bobbett
Informative Article. Gives strong overview of French Presidential Election, from where victory stemmed, and especially the potential of Francois Hollande to help stabilise the European debt crisis going forward