Pic from purepeople

We have a new president, or will have some time between now and 16th May which is the latest date by which he must have his investiture. Sarko is going to have to get a move on to pack his goods and chattels and vacate the President’s chief residence, the Élysée Palace in Paris. And not only that, he has to clear out of the other Presidential properties, namely the Fort de Brégançon, in southeastern France; the Hôtel de Marigny, next door to the Palace; the Château de Rambouillet; the Domaine National de Marly and the Domaine de Souzy-la-Briche. Some of these places aren’t used much but Sarko might have a toothbrush in them that needs removing.

François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande is our new guy. He gained the support of 51.67% of the voters, so he didn’t win by a massive margin – but he won. In our commune of Nouzerines he obtained 91 votes, Sarkozy got 61 votes and 12 wicked souls spoilt their ballot papers, rendering them ‘nul’, which is what Marine Le Pen had asked her supporters to do.

Hollande is a socialist, and the first left wing French president for 17 years.

What can we expect from him? He’s talked about creating 60,000 more teaching posts in the state sector – good, good, good; more civil servants – bad as you’ll know if you’ve ever tried dealing with them; raising corporate taxes – bad because they’ll get pushed down to the consumers so we’ll see prices going up; taxing millionaires at 75% – good although should I ever become a millionaire (I still live in hopes) it will be bad, and he’s generally anti-austerity – presumably good.

What his stance is regarding autoentrepreneurs, time will tell. A lot of politicians are deeply distrustful of we small, struggling independent traders, even though there are now a million of us in existence, but I’m in the union now and will help fight any moves to get rid of us.

The general election takes place in five weeks’ time to establish the new parliament and then M Hollande will be rolling his sleeves up and really getting stuck in.

And now that he’s President and can award himself whatever salary he wishes, I imagine I won’t get any more emails from him asking for a fiver …