Occupy L'Elysee

Nicolas Sarkozy’s unpopularity was not the only reason that on Sunday made him the first sitting president not to lead in the initial round of a French presidential election. In the five years of his term, which coincided with the financial crisis, voters certainly came to resent Sarko’s “bling-bling” style, his haphazard ways and half-hearted reforms. But the main lesson of the vote is the massive rejection of the European Union and European Central Bank’s current prescribed policies of reforms and austerity. Whoever the next president is — the odds still favour Hollande — this massive “non” will weigh on his policies, and open a new phase in the euro zone crisis.

The strong showing by the National Front, the ultra-right party, is the most visible sign of the grand rejection, also reflected in the good performance of populist left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. The two garnered almost 30 per cent of the total votes.

But Hollande himself campaigned throughout against the recent euro zone agreements. And some of Sarkozy’s voters were no doubt attracted by his late-campaign protectionist rhetoric, including criticism of the ECB.

All in all, around 60 per cent of French voters rejected the current euro prescription, assuming two-thirds of Hollande’s and one-quarter of Sarkozy’s supporters are included in this disparate coalition. This popular preference will set the mood for the first meeting between the next French president and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Some compromise will have to be reached. Putting the emphasis on growth, as the French ask, is nice. But any president will have to realise he must commit to painful reform to achieve that very goal.

On the other side, the German government can’t remain forever deaf to the insistent demands of the let’s-talk-about-growth clan. The fall of the Dutch government suggests Germany’s great ally in austerity may be wavering. One more sign that it would be a dangerous and costly mistake to ignore the will of voters in Europe’s second-largest economy.