We’ve just found out what his mandate was. It was that he not be his opponent.

Left tempers Sarkozy’s poll win – CNN.com

PARIS, France (Reuters) — French President Nicolas Sarkozy won a solid parliamentary majority for political and economic reforms on Monday but voters soured the right’s celebrations by not giving a forecast landslide and rejecting a top minister.

Final official results gave 52-year-old Sarkozy a power base of 345 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, well below the crushing 470-seat majority predicted in some pre-poll estimates. Votes appeared to have been lost over a sales tax rise.

Despite the setbacks, Sarkozy has the legislative muscle to press ahead with reforms designed to make France’s economy more competitive by loosing rigid labor laws, trimming fat from the public service, cutting taxes and restoring full employment.

He has vowed to shake up the euro zone’s second-largest economy and boost annual growth. The economy grew 2.1 percent in 2006 against an average 2.7 percent in the euro zone. Unemployment is estimated to be at least 8.3 percent.

It should be noted that the EU nations have more accurate reporting of both GDP and unemployment, so this is rather close to US numbers.

Sarkozy, who had been set to complete his government line-up by naming some junior ministers, faced an unexpected reshuffle after his government number two Alain Juppe lost in his Bordeaux stamping ground and promptly announced he would quit.

Sunday’s elections left Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and its allies with fewer than the 359 seats they had enjoyed in the outgoing legislature, while the Socialists and their allies increased their haul to 207 from 149.

The French voters just told Sarkosy, “Not so fast”. The fact that one of his junior ministers lost is interesting too, though I’m not versed in French politics.