France awaits its new leader

The election of Nicolas Sarkozy as France’s next president brought euphoria, speculation and anxiety Monday, heightened by the smoldering debris of election-night violence.

The French elected Sarkozy on Sunday because of his insistent promises of change and reputation for toughness. He will need all his skill to streamline the vast public sector, which spends almost half its budget on salaries and pensions and is staunchly defended by the left.

Sarkozy and his family flew Monday to the Mediterranean island of Malta, where he planned to spend a few days resting and preparing for the challenges ahead.

Government officials and political observers predicted that when he returns to take office May 16, Sarkozy will hit the ground running. They said he will carefully blend innovation and ideology, openness and toughness. He is expected to form an unusually diverse government. In addition, he plans to launch measures that would boost employment and wages and curtail crime and immigration.

“With the campaign speeches he made for the past year that did not vary and were coherent, he has arrived at the moment of implementation,” said Francois d’Orcival, a political analyst. “Obviously, there are things that will take time. But what is urgent is that there are enough simple, rapid, immediate and targeted measures that create a kind of psychological shock and make the public, and not just his voters, realize that things are happening.”

Disturbances continue

Portents of danger marred the morning after. Busloads of riot police remained on alert in the elegant cobblestone plazas of the capital and the stark concrete esplanades of its industrial slums after Sarkozy’s victory set off nationwide disturbances that escalated well into the morning hours Monday.

In a country accustomed to the threat of youth unrest, the damage was nowhere near the destruction left by nationwide riots that lasted for more than three weeks in 2005. But the toll was a bit worse than traditionally violent nights such as New Year’s Eve or Bastille Day, police said. Rioters burned 730 cars around France. Police made 593 arrests and reported 78 officers injured, none seriously. On Monday night, new protests resulted in smaller skirmishes in Paris and Nantes.

Authorities blamed the election-night upheaval on two groups that do not get along but share a resentment of Sarkozy as a symbol of law-and-order, free-market conservatism. The street clashes involved young leftist extremists, many of them middle-class students. But the vandalism in industrial suburbs was the work of more dangerous youth gangs active in low-income housing projects with large immigrant populations.

The new government hopes to defuse the tension with those groups, a particular concern because labor protests are likely in coming months. Sarkozy will have to confront unions in order to lengthen the 35-hour workweek, push back the pension age for public employees and ensure basic public transportation during strikes. He also wants to eliminate one of every two government jobs that becomes vacant, through retirement, while raising pay for public workers.

Sarkozy’s program promotes free-market solutions in a nation where even the right cherishes big government. But he is not the orthodox, Margaret Thatcher-like free-marketeer that some have portrayed him as, analysts said.

“He is no Thatcher,” said analyst Francois Heisbourg. “But he could very well throw French society into a state of polarization.”

Disadvantaged youths

Asked about the election-night unrest, a top Sarkozy advisor said Monday evening that the president’s priorities include jobs for youths in the housing projects, where unemployment can approach 50%. Observers anticipate a major jobs program, a new super-ministry combining economic strategy and employment, and incentives for hiring disadvantaged youths.

“People in those neighborhoods, like everywhere in France, have one desire: to live in peace, to work, to have a job, to have a future for their children,” said advisor Claude Gueant in an interview on the France 2 television network. “And Nicolas Sarkozy has said ... that for those in the difficult neighborhoods, there will be very significant action for the youth.”

The composition of the government will demonstrate historic change, according to well-sourced officials. In a stratified society in which women and minorities have made less progress than elsewhere in Europe, half the Cabinet ministers will be women, Sarkozy has said.

Insiders say he will appoint top officials of North African and African descent. They cite a rising star in his entourage, campaign spokeswoman Rachida Dati, the daughter of a Moroccan laborer. And they predict he will make good on his calls for unity by appointing prominent centrists and others who do not belong to his Union for a Popular Movement party.

Sarkozy also is expected to pursue promises that appealed to hard-core conservatives. He plans to create a ministry for immigration and national identity aimed at combating illegal immigration and ensuring that legal immigrants accept French values, officials said. And he will quickly propose tougher sentencing laws for repeat offenders, including juveniles.

“Those will be the big priorities, justice and unemployment,” said one government official. “He wants to get moving and show he means business.”

rotella@latimes.com