Cheers and tears after Sarkozy's victory
“Nicolas!” tens of thousands chanted, kissing and waving French flags and blue balloons to ring in victory for conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, elected president of France after a hotly contested campaign.
“I ask you to extend your hand. I ask you to give the image of a country united,” Sarkozy told a crowd estimated at 30,000 at the famed Place de la Concorde at the foot of Paris’ Champs-Elysees avenue.
“I will be the president of all French …. I won’t disappoint you,” he said.
The throngs then intoned the French national anthem.
Sarkozy’s supporters raised their voices in a first victory cheer as voting results were announced at 8pm local time.
Hours earlier, thousands more holding blue balloons – in the colour of Sarkozy’s campaign – thronged the street outside his conservative party headquarters, near the presidential Elysee Palace. Horns honked and some Metro stations reverberated with cheers.
Beer kegs and a long table festooned with flowers showed Sarkozy’s team had meticulously prepared for a victory, as they had prepared the campaign.
Excited supporters jumped so hard at the nearby Gaveau recital hall, where Sarkozy addressed party faithful, that balconies appeared to tremble and officials told the crowd to stop.
“This is a euphoric moment for us,” said Guillaume Guastalla, a 27-year-old optometrist.
The scene across the Seine River, however, was tearful. Crestfallen supporters of Socialist candidate Segolene Royal packed the famed Left Bank Saint-Germain boulevard where she had based her campaign.
Royal was gracious in accepting defeat, beaming a smile at the crowd.
“I thank from the bottom of my heart the nearly 17 million voters … who placed their trust in me, and I can gauge their disappointment,” she said.
“I hope that the next president of the Republic will accomplish his mission at the service of all the French people.”
Sarkozy’s victory culminates a hard-fought campaign that pitted two dramatically different candidates and campaign platforms against one another.
Sarkozy’s supporters thronged into the Place de la Concorde for a music concert and an appearance by the president-elect.
“France is finally going to move, raise itself up,” said Marie Laurence, a 25-year-old urban planner, outside UMP headquarters.
“I think now that there is a future for France,” said Xavier Tassin, a 42-year-old doctor.
Security was increased around Paris and its suburbs, where housing projects are located, to hold off risks of trouble.
Sarkozy is blamed for inflaming riots in late 2005 by referring to project youths, most of them of immigrant origin, as scum.
There were no immediate reports of major problems after Sarkozy’s win. However, police launched tear gas and used water cannon to try to chase angry left-wingers throwing bottles and stones out of the Place de la Bastille. A similar confrontation was reported in the south east city of Lyon.
“I don’t know how this is going to be received by the youth, but I hope that in no way will it be violent in the same way that things were in 2005,” said Samir Mihi, spokesman for Aclefeu, a neighbourhood group created after the rioting in Clichy-Sous-Bois, where the violence that year began.
“The strength of Nicolas Sarkozy is to have understood that France hasn’t adapted to the world today, and that has cost us,” said a student outside the UMP headquarters. “If France doesn’t change, we will have grave problems.”
Another student, Nicolas Cadot, among the cheering crowd at the Concorde, praised Sarkozy for “renewing our confidence in politics”.
But, he added: “He is going to be under enormous pressure because he absolutely must do what he said.”
