PARIS: A resounding Socialist victory in weekend parliamentary elections will allow President Francois Hollande to press ahead with reforms to tame France's deficit and promote economic growth in Europe, a senior minister said yesterday.
Final results from Sunday's ballot showed the Socialists and their affiliates had won 314 seats, comfortably exceeding the 289 needed for a majority in the National Assembly and freeing them from reliance on the anti-austerity and Eurosceptical far left.
With the Senate upper house already controlled by the centre-left, the Socialists are now turning their attention to a special parliamentary session next month to push through budget legislation, including tax rises for large firms, particularly banks and energy companies.
The measures are part of Hollande's dual drive to balance France's budget by 2017.
Separately, President Hollande denounced yesterday the killing of two policewomen as an "attack" on the nation as officials said a young mason arrested was the likely perpetrator.
The gendarmes, aged 29 and 35, were intervening in a dispute on Sunday following a petty theft in the southeastern village of Collobrieres when the accused knocked down one of them, grabbed her gun and killed her and then the other, investigators said.
"It's a tragedy... it's the Republic which has been attacked," Hollande said in a statement as the killings sent shockwaves across the country, adding: "I learnt of the deaths with great sadness."
The man was arrested early yesterday near Collobrieres after a massive manhunt involving more than 300 men, including a special operations military unit, and a helicopter.
He was born in 1982 and was a mason, a source close to the investigation said.
"It's very likely that it was him. All the information that we have indicates that he was the shooter," Toulon prosecutor Xavier Tarabeux told AFP.
He was known to police and has not confessed anything thus far, Tarabeux added.
A police spokesman for the local Paca region said the force was "deeply shocked." The elder victim had two daughters aged five and 13 while the other was unmarried.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls, designated by Hollande to go to the village as the president had to head off to Mexico for a G20 summit, said the killing had sparked "shock in the village and in the police force."
Valls was scheduled to give a news conference later yesterday.
Collobrieres was still cordoned off after house-to-house searches overnight.
French Socialists vow reforms after big poll win
