A victory charged with meaning

On Sunday, the Socialist François Hollande won the second round of the French presidential elections by a clear margin. It could be said that the crisis and the austerity policies imposed by the markets, Berlin and Brussels have claimed a new victim in the shape of Nicolas Sarkozy, the politician who, after the collapse of Lehmann Brothers in September 2008, announced a “recasting of capitalism,” which eventually came to nothing.

Hollande’s victory comes as a breath of fresh air for the left in Europe and in France. No Socialist has occupied the Elysée Palace since Mitterand left it in 1995. But the experience of Mitterand — who, after his 1981 victory quickly retreated to economic orthodoxy — will be salutary for Hollande. The new president is further cramped by the corsets of the financial markets and by the euro. Projecting the image of a calm man has been prudent, given the difficulties that lie ahead.

While accepting fiscal austerity, he is calling for the addition of an EU-wide policy of growth. He is not the first to do so, but the mere prospect of his victory set in motion a dynamic to this effect in Brussels, Berlin and other capitals — except, it would seem, Madrid, in spite of the desirability of the idea for Spain.

What Sunday’s elections in France, and in Greece, reflect is the fact that the citizens of more and more countries consider, like Hollande, that the EU-imposed policy of severe austerity “is not decreed by fate,” nor is it sufficient in itself. It has been imposed in part for ideological reasons. Hollande, at the head of the EU’s second-largest economy, may stimulate a debate of ideas at variance with the dominant neoliberalism.

Any such rectification toward a growth plan has to involve Brussels, as well as individual countries. Though each state has to make far-reaching structural reforms — including a sclerotic France, which needs to be re-energized — purely national solutions are no longer valid in a globalized world.

The new president has to understand, too, that most of the other EU member states feel sidelined by the all-powerful Berlin-Paris axis, which must again recede to its due place within the institutions of the EU. This will be excellent news for Europeanists, though they must be aware that, in the first electoral round, many French voters supported Marine Le Pen’s anti-EU ideas, to some extent adopted by Sarkozy.

The dynamic of elections in two rounds tends to project an image of a divided France. Hollande will have to endeavor to unite it. Sarkozy’s immediate good-loser speech, in which he accepted his defeat, will help. But the electoral campaign is not entirely over. There is still the “third round,” the legislative elections in June. Without a parliamentary majority, the new president will hardly be able to govern as he would wish. And after the defeat of Sarkozy, who says he will no longer head his UMP party, the French right fall into disarray, all too easily exploited by the extreme right of Le Pen. This would be dangerous for France, and for the EU.