Sarkozy to be France's next president

By Crispian Balmer

PARIS (Reuters) - Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy triumphed in France's presidential election on Sunday, sweeping aside his Socialist rival Segolene Royal on the back of a huge turnout that gave him a powerful mandate for reform.

Thousands of rightist supporters flooded into central Paris to celebrate the victory, but there were also skirmishes between leftist sympathisers and police in at least one city square and reports of sporadic violence in two suburbs near the capital.

Addressing cheering party faithful, Sarkozy pledged to push through his reform programme, promising to wage war on unemployment and give a boost to French morale.

"The French people have chosen change. I will usher in this change because it is the mandate I have received from the people and because France needs it, but I will do it with all the French," he said, looking to heal the divisions of the campaign.

With almost all ballots counted, Sarkozy had won 53.1 percent of the vote against 46.9 percent for Royal. Turnout was some 85 percent -- the highest since 1981.

His emphatic win extends the right's 12-year grip on power but also marks the end of an era. Jacques Chirac, 74, will now retire after two terms as president of France, a nuclear power with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, presented himself as the "candidate of work", promising to loosen the 35-hour work week by offering tax breaks on overtime and to trim fat from the public service, cut taxes and wage war on unemployment.

Voters saw the uncompromising Sarkozy as a more competent leader than Royal, with a more convincing economic programme.