HERE'S WHAT PRESIDENT SARKOZY MIGHT HAVE IN STORE FOR FRANCE IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS

UK TELEGRAPH:

After taking a few days off to "meditate" on his election, the former interior minister is planning to name a slimmed-down caretaker government, with just 15 cabinet ministers, ahead of legislative elections on June 10 and 17 in which he hopes to secure a solid majority in France's parliament, the National Assembly.

Two names are said to be in the running for prime minister: François Fillon, Mr Sarkozy's chief political adviser, who has barely left his side during the campaign, and Jean-Louis Borloo, 56, the employment and social cohesion minister who is regarded as the social conscience of the Right.

... Mr Sarkozy has promised that half of his ministers will be women, among them his star recruit and spokesman Rachida Dati, 40, a former judge of North African origin.

Françoise de Panafieu, who will run for mayor of Paris next year, may also get a post.

RTWT.

THE ROAD AWAY FROM SERFDOM WON'T BE EASY: UK GUARDIAN:

And though Royal's claims last week that a Sarkozy victory would lead to 'violence' were dismissed as scaremongering by her opponent's media team, significant social strife is likely if he wins. Many local mayors in areas where tensions are already high - Sarkozy is hated in many of the poorest housing estates in France for having described delinquents as 'scum' - are planning heavy police deployments tonight.

There is talk too of a 'third round' of the election in the streets. France's powerful unions last week vowed a trial of strength with Sarkozy who, through his plans to modify France's legally enforced 35-hour week, labour laws and expensive welfare model, is seen as the living incarnation of 'the excesses of American-style capitalism'.

'If Nicolas Sarkozy thinks that if elected he will have the right to push through all the reforms that he has announced, whatever the unions think of them, then he is making a big mistake,' said Bernard Thibault, the general secretary of the CGT, France's biggest union.

If Sarkozy wins, his likely Prime Minister is Francois Fillon, a former minister and senator reviled by the left for his controversial pension reforms five years ago.

France needs at least as much reform now as the UK did in the 1980's. WILL SARKOZY BE AS GOOD FOR FRANCE AS THATCHER WAS FOR GREAT BRITAIN? I HOPE SO... WE'LL SOON SEE - I HOPE!