The French elections, closing in a few hours, are interesting as ever. No centrists here, it’s left against right—Royal the socialist against Sarkozy the slightly pro-American. What the election means for the rest of the world is up for debate.

Sophie Pedder looks at Sarkozy’s new book, Testimony, to see what kind of president he might be. She says that “President Sarkozy might even live up to the audacious politician who appears in Testimony: a risk-taker and pragmatist, pugnacious and nonideological.”

The Wall Street Journal sees the French elections as a test case for how Europe as a whole might go. “The campaign may have culminated in a clear left-right split,” they write, “but with little room for free-market ideas.” Until the free-market comes to Europe the WSJ sees little hope for a European economic renaissance.

John Nichols thinks Royal is smart to link Sarkozy to Bush. American politics are as much at play in the French presidential race as French politics.

John MacArthur, a dual French-U.S. citizen, joined the French literary set to decide how he would vote. He provides a “deconstruction” of his ballot.

The LA Times doesn’t think that the French election will make all that much difference for France’s relationship with the world. Though “the contest between ‘Sego and Sarko’ has attracted strong interest internationally…Whether either would bring noticeable change to France's external relations is an open question.”