A sharp right turn

  • The Guardian,
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There never was any doubt that Nicolas Sarkozy would become France's next president. After a passionate campaign marked by record turnouts and television audiences, the rightwing challenger breezed into office with a commanding 53% of the vote, six points ahead of the woman who had warned France on Friday that there would be violence and brutality if he were elected. The French have not voted in a man they particularly like. Ségolène Royal came across as a better person. But France has voted in a president it feels it needs. It has unequivocally decided that the cure for 12 years of drift is a sharp swing to the right, and this is exactly what it is going to get.

Mr Sarkozy's victory was not just a question of numbers. The left had indeed shrunk to the point at which no candidate depending on its votes alone could win. But the rightwing candidate also held two huge personal advantages over his centre-left challenger. He had fought and won his internal party battles a long time before the official campaign had started. Ms Royal has all of this still ahead of her. For most of her campaign she was gloriously alone, sniped at by an unreformed and truculent party whose jealous stars were all too eager to play the role of Brutus. It was not a question of who would be the first to put the knife in, but who would be the last. Mr Sarkozy's second advantage was to be crystal clear in his message. He made a virtue out of saying what he thought. The more outrageous he was, the better it suited his image as a mould-breaker. Hidebound by a manifesto that was not hers, Ms Royal said as little as she could. Had the centrist-leaning Socialist candidate spoken her mind, she would have split her party.

For Mr Sarkozy the time for speechifying is over. Having acquired a reputation as the man who gets things done, the president-elect will storm into action. For this 6,000 riot police around Paris are braced. All police leave in the Seine-Saint-Denis region of north-east Paris, the scene of the worst riots in 2005, has been cancelled. The only brake on the president-elect's actions is the immediate prospect of parliamentary elections on June 10 and 17. These are likely to go the same way as the presidential election, and if they do the last hurdle will be cleared. If rioting does break out in the suburbs, the social unrest will not do anyone, least of all the immigrant communities, any good. It will only play into the hands of a president eager to earn his spurs as a tough, no-nonsense leader.

The same logic applies to the threat of the unions to make mass demonstrations on the streets, the "third round" of the presidential elections. Mr Sarkozy may be a divisive and dangerous figure for just under half of the French nation. But he has been elected by near-record numbers of voters. Not since 1965 have so many people participated in the fierce debate. This confers legitimacy on both Mr Sarkozy the president-elect and his programme, especially since he has been so blunt about what he intends to do.

For the French left there is only one real choice: not to demonise the right, but to put its own house in order. After three successive presidential defeats it surely is time. Ms Royal has probably done enough, with a predicted 47% of the vote, to ensure that she remains the main challenger the next time round. But the Socialist party now has some painful rethinking to do. If it stays intact it will need to reform itself into a party which represents the centre-left. Ms Royal will not be the immediate target for recrimination, but her partner, François Hollande, the Socialist party secretary, may well be. This is where the main battle ground is going to lie, for François Bayrou, the centre-right challenger who came third in the first round two weeks ago, has also vowed to create a new democratic centrist party. One thing is certain: neither the left nor France will be the same again.

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