Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president-elect, left to spend a few days on a friend's yacht off Malta yesterday as France prepared for the potentially wild ride of his reform programme.

Wearing jeans and an open-necked shirt, Mr Sarkozy, 52, departed without his family for several days of rest before he succeeds Jacques Chirac on Wednesday next week.

He is expected to appoint François Fillon, a former Education Minister, as prime minister then. Mr Fillon, 53, whose wife, Penelope, is Welsh, will lead the Government in parliamentary elections next month, with the aim of achieving the first return of an incumbent French party for three decades.

“We have to act, the French people expect it. They have given him a real mandate,” Claude Gueant, Mr Sarkozy’s chief of staff, said. Even the Socialist opposition concurred that the 53 per cent of the vote Mr Sarkozy won on Sunday was a clear-cut endorsement for the tough moral and economic reform he had promised.

“Fasten your seat belts. This will be quite a ride,” the veteran commentator Jean d’Ormes-son wrote inLe Figaro. Opinion leaders believe that France has at last taken the leap to join the modern world of competition and deregulation.

The election sparked violent demonstrations and the burning of 267 cars on Sunday. About 300 youths stopped traffic while marching in Central Paris yesterday. “Sarko Fascist, the people will have your hide,” they chanted.

The Sarkozy team believes that anger will subside once he implements his “Marshal plan” to ease the plight of depressed immigrant suburbs. It was encouraged, too, by his having won more votes than expected, albeit as the loser, in many of the troubled districts.

Tony Blair telephoned Mr Sarkozy and put out a welcome message on the YouTube video-sharing site. He was confident Mr Sarkozy “will want to forge a good and close partnership between Britain and France for the good of our two countries, for Europe and the wider world”. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said: “It is important to continue the close, trusting and intensive cooperation between Germany and France.” The message implied an element of hope that he would tone down his ambitions to reestablish French leadership in the European Union.

Brussels has been upset by many of Mr Sarkozy’s policies, including the defence of farm subsidies and barring of Turkey from the EU. He also wants to strip Peter Mandelson, the Trade Commissioner, of his role as chief negotiator for the EU in the World Trade Organisation. The two do not get on, and disagree over free trade.

The Bush Administration was “delighted” with the election of an admirer of the United States. Mr Sarkozy has, however, said that it could expect pressure on climate change.

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