REUTERS.COM: France looked set to crown Francois Hollande as its first Socialist president in nearly two decades in an election on Sunday, marking a shift 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, faced being the 11th euro zoneleader to be swept from power by the economic crisis after final opinion polls placed Hollande between four and eight points ahead.
A wide margin of victory would give Hollande greater authority to pursue his promise to temper unpopular German-led austerity, which sparked protests across southern Europe last week, and refocusing economic policy on fostering growth.
In a decisive day for the recession-hit single currency area, Greece's mainstream political parties were punished in a parliamentary election for rising economic misery due to IMF-imposed spending cuts, exit polls showed.
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.
In Paris's Bastille square, a flashpoint of the 1789 French Revolution and the Socialists' traditional gathering point for electoral celebrations, crowd barriers were already laid out in anticipation of an Hollande victory. Party supporters gathered in excitement two hours before the last polls closed, and giant television screens were erected.
In Tulle, Hollande supporters drove around the town honking car horns. » | Sybille de La Hamaide and Daniel Flynn | PARIS | Sunday, May 06, 2012
Related »
