Violence mars Sarkozy victory

French President-elect Nicolas Sarkozy disappeared on a retreat with his family yesterday to consider his government line-up and plot strategy for a crucial parliamentary election in June.

Mr Sarkozy, a combative conservative, won a strong mandate for political and economic change by winning 53.06 per cent of the vote in Sunday's presidential run-off against 46.94 for Socialist Segolene Royal.

But he needs to secure a majority in the election for the National Assembly on June 10 and 17 to make good on his vows to loosen rigid labour laws, trim fat from the public service, cut taxes and restore full employment.

Mr Sarkozy left Paris in the morning with his wife and son, after spending the night in a luxury Paris hotel, and they were widely expected to spend a few days on a Mediterranean island to recharge his batteries.

"These few days rest were planned to put him more in the mindset of a president after the tumultuous battle," said Claude Gueant, his campaign director.

"It will also be a few days to let him reflect on the make-up of his government team," he told RTL radio.

However his victory was marred by overnight clashes across France between police and anti-Sarkozy protesters. Police said they arrested 592 people after demonstrators set fire to 730 cars and injured 78 policemen in numerous incidents.

Some of the worst violence occurred around Paris's famous Bastille Square where youths went on the rampage, smashing phone cabins and shop windows.

Mr Sarkozy made his name as a law-and-order hardliner who also tightened France's immigration laws, making him a hate figure for the left. Slogans spray-painted on the streets of Paris overnight included "Sarkozy fascist".

Similar attacks were reported in the southeastern city of Lyon and the southern city of Toulouse. Bus shelters were smashed in the northern city of Lille and a school was set on fire in the Paris suburb of Evry.

In the northern department clustered around Lille, about 100 cars were torched, the fire brigade said. However, an internal police memo said there was no large-scale trouble there. It added that the level of violence was above that usually seen on July 14 Bastille Day, France's national holiday, "but below that of New Year's celebrations".

Police say on an average just over 100 cars are set ablaze in France each night.

Still, cars and shop windows were also damaged in Nantes while to the northwest, in Caen, four police were hurt and an attempt was made to set fire to the local office of Sarkozy's UMP party.

Mr Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, will take office on May 16, succeeding President Jacques Chirac who is standing down after 12 years in power.

He has promised a deluge of reforms in his first 100 days including plans to curb union powers, tighten sentencing for criminals and undermine the 35-hour work week, introduced by a previous leftist government, by cutting taxes on overtime. Union leaders have denounced his proposals and France could face crippling strikes in the autumn of the sort that tripped Mr Chirac when he took office in 1995 and tried to impose change.

"All attempt to pass things by force would backfire," Jean-Claude Mailly, the secretary general of the Force Ouvriere union, said in a statement yesterday.

Foreign leaders rushed to congratulate Mr Sarkozy and a White House spokesman said Washington looked forward to working with the new president following often frosty relations with Mr Chirac, who was vehemently opposed to the US-led invasion of Iraq. Mr Sarkozy is a particularly controversial figure in France's poor, multi-ethnic suburbs, which were the epicentre of three weeks of rioting in 2005.