France looked set to crown Francois Hollande as its first Socialist president in nearly two decades in an election on Sunday as this paper went to print, marking a swing to the left at the heart of Europe and heralding a fight-back against German-led austerity.
Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, swamped by anger at a surge in unemployment during his five-year term, would be the 11th euro zone leader to be swept away by economic crisis after final opinion polls put Hollande at least four points ahead.
A wide margin of victory would give Hollande greater authority in pressing German Chancellor Angela Merkel to accept a shift in Europe’s economic policy towards fostering growth and easing austerity that has sparked protests in southern Europe.
Greece’s mainstream political parties were hammered in a parliamentary election on Sunday over rising economic misery due to IMF-imposed spending cuts, exit polls showed, raising doubts about Athens’ future in the currency area.
Hollande cast his vote for the presidential runoff in the central town of Tulle, where he was mayor for seven years, shaking hands and kissing voters, many of whom he knows personally. “I am confident. I am sure,” he told Reuters as he ate later in a local restaurant packed with Tulle residents.
Even before first results were declared, cheering crowds gathered in the street outside Socialist headquarters in Paris to celebrate what would be the party’s first presidential victory since Francois Mitterrand was re-elected in 1988. Many waved red flags and some carried roses, the party emblem.
In Bastille square, flashpoint of the 1789 French Revolution and the left’s traditional rallying point for protests and celebration, crowd barriers were ready and giant television screens erected in anticipation of an Hollande victory. Excited activists began partying two hours before the polls closed.
In Tulle, Hollande supporters drove around the town honking car horns.
Sarkozy was greeted by cheering crowds when he arrived to vote at a school in an up-market Paris neighbourhood near the home of his wife Carla Bruni, a former supermodel.
“We are going to win” chanted supporters as the conservative leader briefly clasped the hands of well-wishers, but the glum faces of his advisers arriving at the Elysee presidential palace in late afternoon told a different story.
With 46 million people registered to vote, polling stations opened at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) and closed in most places at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT) and two hours later in big cities.
Interior ministry figures showed 72.0 per cent of registered voters had cast ballots by 5 p.m. (1500 GMT) despite wet weather in much of the country, topping the 70.6 per cent registered at the same stage of the first round on April 22.
Reliable projections of the result based on a partial count were due as soon as the last polling stations closed. Media that publish exit polls or partial results in France before then risk fines and legal action.
In Athens, French overseas voters voiced hope that a Hollande victory would temper Germany’s drive for budgetary discipline which many say is driving a number of euro zone countries into recession. “Enough is enough. There is too much austerity,” 72-year-old Maria said, voting for Hollande at the French consulate.
