By Chandrashekar (Chandra) Tamirisa, (On Twitter) @c_tamirisa

François Gérard Georges Hollande is now the 24th president of the Fifth French Republic having won the election in second round voting by more than 50% of the total number of registered voters.

A well-groomed republican, having attended all the conventional elite universities of France to prepare for holding high public office, Hollande’s election platform is strong on social integration and more transparent on the necessity of the Franco-German anchor for European integration through 2050, unlike the controversial and at times brusque social and European engagement of his more conservative and Napoleaon-esque rival Nicolas Sarkozy.

The close vote for the Élysée Palace is indicative of the preference of the French electorate for balance in the parliament, though the weaker parliament of representatives of the Fifth Republic could present a historical opportunity for Hollande to begin constitutional reforms in France toward a Sixth Republic – a post-Platonic State of direct presidential democracy administered by a president in office for a single 7-year presidential term supported by France’s relatively well run government bureaucracies – both the presidency and the bureaucracies being directly accountable to the French people through a process of direct and fully participatory legislative process.

Hollande will face challenging debates on his approach to the Financial markets regulation, Taxation, and Energy – similar to Barack Obama in the United States, and on the military component of Franco-German collaboration vis-à-vis the reforms of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

One World congratulates the new French president and looks forward to engaging France through the end of his first 5-year term in 2017.