françois hollande – DarylCagle.com

Over the weekend, cartoon-friendly French President Nicolas Sarkozy lost his re-election bid to Socialist candidate Francois Hollande. By rejecting Sarkozy, the French also rejected austerity measures that have been enacted across Eurpope to combat the debt crisis. Now they turn to their first Socialist president in 17 years to fix their financial house and get people working again.

Here’s my cartoon about Sarkozy’s exit, and four others from some of our best world cartoonists, who tend to care more about these things than our American counterparts…

Daryl Cagle / msnbc.com (click to view more cartoons by Cagle)

Patrick Chappattee / Switzerland, PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Chappatte)

Martin Sutovec / Slovakia, PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Sutovec)

Petar Pismestrovic / Austria, PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Pismestrovic)

Joep Bertrams / The Netherlands, PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Bertrams)

It’s interesting that Americans tend to disregard presidential elections in other countries, while our foreign counterparts wait with baited breath for Obama and Romney to go after one another.

It’s too bad, because there’s a really interesting election shaping up in France between incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist candidate Francois Hollande. The two came neck and neck in the first round of the country’s presidential election, with the final round between the two set for May 6. Things aren’t looking good for Sarkozy, and if he’s defeated, he’d become the first president in France’s history not to serve two terms.

We have a great stable of foreign cartoonists that have been covering this race, so I thought I’d share five terrific cartoons here on my blog…