France's incumbent President and right-wing ruling party Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) candidate Nicolas Sarkozy makes his speech after the first round of the 2012 French Presidential election. Marc Piasecki/Getty Images UPDATE: French media has declared Holland the winner of the French Presidential election.

The final tally is about 52-48%.

See more below...

ORIGINAL POST: No major shock here.

McClatchyDC reports:

French Socialist Francois Hollande appeared headed to victory over President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to exit polls of voters released by Swiss and Belgian news media.

Those polls showed Hollande with 52 to 53 percent of the vote in an election that turned on solutions for Europe's economic crisis amid record unemployment in France.

Again, this is not a surprise at all, but the implications are no less real.

The victor, Hollande, has said he's opposed to the Eurozone's existing (but unsigned) fiscal compact, which effectively bans fiscal stimulus. He also favors more ECB involvement, higher taxes domestically, and generally a stance towards growth.

More significantly, perhaps, is that Merkozy is no more. Germany has already indicated that they'll work with Hollande (what else would they say?), but they're not going to be on the same page.

How they resolve their differences and work together is going to be the new story in Europe.

Anyway, the joke now is that Merkel plus Hollande = Merde.

Between this, and the Greek result, which is indicating a major collapse in support for the majority parties, things are getting even more interesting in Europe.