A surge in support for Greek anti-bailout parties threw Europe’s response to the debt crisis into renewed doubt, as French socialist François Hollande ousted president Nicolas Sarkozy in a convincing election win.
Mr Hollande will be sworn in as French president on May 15, an official at outgoing President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said today. He will accompany Mr Sarkozy at an annual ceremony tomorrow, a national holiday in France, to commemorate the end of World War Two.
Mr Hollande’s victory will add political momentum to the push for economic growth in Europe, but his demand for changes to the fiscal treaty carries the potential for conflict with Germany.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today she would welcome Mr Hollande "with open arms" and said the two leaders would work together closely.
"We will work together well and intensively and we will meet quite soon after (he enters office). I may say from my side that Francois Hollande will be welcomed with open arms here in Germany by me," she said.
Ms Merkel publicly backed President Nicolas Sarkozy during the election campaign. She also said it was important that Greece, where ruling pro-bailout parties lost their majority in a parliamentary election yesterday, continue with the agreed reform programmes.
Ms Merkel, who opposes revising the treaty, spoke by phone to the incoming president last night. Before the call, a spokesman for Mr Hollande said he would be raising the treaty question.
"He will say that if we want the treaty to be ratified, it needs to be renegotiated because a treaty that imposes austerity cannot be a good treaty, be it for the European economy or for the Europeans themselves," said Benoit Hamon, a spokesman for Mr Hollande. "We're going to roll up our sleeves and get to work, and say to chancellor Merkel we need to talk again about these issues."
US president Barack Obama invited Mr Hollande to the White House ahead of this month's summit of the Group of Eight leading economies at Camp David, Maryland. After that, Mr Hollande will attend a Nato summit in
Chicago, where he will announce he is pulling French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year.
In his victory speech last night in his political base of Tulle, Mr Hollande said he would go to Germany with the message that "austerity can no longer be an inevitability in Europe".
Weeks ahead of the Irish referendum, any move to reopen the treaty would expose the Government to accusations that the people will be voting on an agreement that is going to be changed.
Yesterday evening in Paris, however, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore hailed Mr Hollande's election as a "very significant event for Europe" and said it would provide new impetus to the growth agenda.
The Coalition believes a new deal on growth should not disrupt the referendum because it would not have "constitutional consequences" for Ireland. "We don't have to change our Constitution to take economic measures to promote growth," Mr Gilmore said.
The outgoing president conceded defeat about 20 minutes after projections from Ipsos for France 2 television suggested Mr Hollande had taken 51.9 per cent of the vote.
"I bear the full responsibility for this defeat," Mr Sarkozy told supporters, many of them in tears.
Mr Sarkozy, who is only the second sitting president to be denied a second term in 50 years, indicated that he would withdraw from frontline politics. "My role can no longer be the same after 35 years of political office," he said. Confirmation of the result set off celebrations at the Socialist Party's headquarters in Paris.
Not since François Mitterrand's re-election in 1988 has the French left won the presidency. Thousands of Mr Hollande's supporters thronged Place de la Bastille in Paris, the traditional gathering point for socialist electoral celebrations.
In Greece, meanwhile, the outcome of a hotly contested general election raises serious questions over the second EU/IMF rescue plan for the country. Exit polls showed a sharp drop in support for the main centre-right and socialist parties, which backed the bailout.
The polls suggest the centre-right New Democracy and the Pasok socialist party, which together negotiated the second bailout, took roughly one-third of the vote, down from their combined 79 per cent in the 2009 election.
New Democracy is entitled to a 50-seat bonus as the party with the most seats. However, it will find it difficult to form a stable government with Pasok at a time when a clear majority of Greeks voted for parties opposed to the EU/IMF package of cutbacks and tax hikes.
The EU authorities have insisted they will not tolerate any departure from the agreed austerity programme. Any failure to execute the plan would threaten the release of the emergency loans the country needs to avoid a further default on its debt.
