With an overwhelming 53 percent of the vote, French conservative Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidential election Sunday against his female rival, Ségolène Royal.

Protests raged across France following the announcement of Sarkozy’s victory, prompting the victor to book it out of town to an undisclosed location, with needing time to think about his first presidential actions as his excuse. After the protests, UK newspaper The Guardian reported 598 people arrested and 730 cars set on fire by youths during the Sunday night riots.

Sarkozy ran on an anti-immigration, anti-welfare state, anti-union platform and, surprisingly, managed to win a majority of the women’s vote as well as a large portion of the blue collar vote despite his promise to encourage economic incentive to expand the French work week.

The French election is a signal that neo-liberalism is still the model for industrialized countries and will likely stay that way for at least the next five years — when France holds its next presidential elections.

The new French president is likely to have a huge impact on the future of the EU as well. Sarkozy has promised to block Turkish entrance into the EU and supports a plan to write a new treaty for the EU rather than adopting an EU Constitution. The tragedy of Turkey is that it is one of the most MuslimWestern countries in the world, and its entrance into the EU would likely have a stabilizing effect on neighboring countries such as Iraq.

Sarkozy was long predicted to win the presidential campaign but, after a weak showing in last week’s debate, many media sources changed their predictions in favor of Royal. During the debate, Sarkozy made clear his view that disabled students should not be allowed to attend traditional public schools because of the additional costs required to educate them. He also argued against a French boycott of the 2008 Olympics in China to protest China’s fueling of the Darfur genocide, a measure Royal said she would support.

France, which has the world’s seventh-largest economy, is not the only country in Europe to elect an economically conservative head of state. German chancellor Angela Merkel and Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who will likely take office in June, are both in favor of neo-liberal economic reforms, which means less taxes and social spending and more laissez-faire, competitive business policies.

Sarkozy’s thinly-veiled racist views are sadly in line with a large portion of French society, but set a poor example for Europe and the EU, which promotes itself as the world’s premiere protector of human rights, equality and democracy. There is little doubt the new French president’s anti-immigration policy will raise tensions between the French Muslim community and Sarkozy supporters; however, it is difficult to consider their rage unjustified.

Ultimately, I support the French protesters. I’ve long considered France a shameful, overly appreciated part of Europe, a self-imposed leader despite its lack of sufficient worldly credentials.

France has had plenty of bloody revolutions during the past 200 years, but perhaps this time only torched cars will be the victims before a new anti-racist, inclusive France emerges.