Nicolas Sarkozy is new French president

Conservative leader 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 the police in city square and reports of sporadic violence in two suburbs near the capital.