By Richard Johnstone | 8 May 2012
Elections across Europe have revealed a voter backlash against the austerity measures being introduced by governments across the continent to tackle budget deficits.
Voters in France, Greece and Italy all swung towards anti-austerity candidates in a host of contests held last weekend.
In France, Socialist Party candidate François Hollande won the presidential run-off vote against incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, from the centre-Right Union for a Popular Movement.
In his first speech as president-elect, Hollande, who will take power on May 15, said that austerity would ‘no longer be inevitable’.
During the campaign, he called for the reopening of the recently signed eurozone fiscal pact, which is designed to ensure governments cut their deficits to help support the euro. On Sunday, he reiterated that the agreement should be renegotiated ‘to give the European dimension of growth, employment, prosperity… as soon as possible’.
He added that the election result ‘must be a milestone for our country - a fresh start for Europe, a new hope for the world’.
Hollande will travel to the Berlin within 24 hours of being inaugurated to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel and discuss possible changes to the fiscal pact.
Greece, which has had to be bailed out by the European Union after its tax revenues fell following the financial crisis and borrowing costs rose, also went to the polls over the weekend.
Both the governing party, the centre-Right New Democracy, and former coalition partners, the socialist Pasok party, lost support to parties that oppose the terms of the bailout.
The leader of Greece's radical Leftwing Syriza Party, Alexis Tsipras, is attempting to form a Cabinet that will reject austerity measures imposed as part of the bailout deal. He said that he would seek to put together a government that was against the ‘barbaric’ cuts.
Although New Democracy topped the poll, leader Antonis Samaras admitted defeat in his attempt to put together a coalition on Monday.
If Tsipras cannot put together a government, a second election is possible.
Following large increases in the borrowing rates for some countries in the eurozone, the fiscal pact was intended to provide backing for the single currency.
It has also led to spending cuts in Italy, where a technocratic government, led by former European commissioner Mario Monti, was put in place last November to undertake economic reforms.
However, in local elections in the country, the centre-Left made gains, as did a protest party set up by a comedian in a sign of widespread discontent with the government's austerity drive.
