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>> this is "bbc world news." in paris, french voters have dealt a blow to the politics of austerity. the new french president promises to replace cuts with economic growth. >> in all the capital, beyond government leaders, we i don't understand state leaders, there are people who are hoping, are looking to us, and want to put an end to austerity. >> a rejection of the big parties in greece, as the he legs results throw doubt over the euro bailout deal. >> and i'm david eades here in london. welcome to "bbc world news." also coming up in this program -- uncertainty in the markets over the future direction of the euro after those election results. vladimir putin sworn in as russian president in a lavish ceremony at the kremlin.

>> hello. the socialist leader and president-elect of france, francois hollande, will today start work on forming a new government in which growth, not austerity, is the watch word. plenty of work for the greek parties to do as well. first, over to john sopel, who's in paris. >> hello and welcome to paris. two men spending two very different days. francois hollande has gone to his socialist party h.q. who thank workers who helped him gain victory, but also start work on picking the people who will make up his new government. while at the palace, nicolas sarkozy is probably starting to say his farewells and getting the packing boxes ready as he

starts a new life, stripped of power am let's have a quick look at how the newspapers here in france are reporting it this morning. it doesn't need many words, it's got lots of pictures. the victory of francois hollande, says "the prirsian," showing him in his home police base. the other paper, who was strongly in support of mr. sarkozy, has an editorial talking about the change that is coming to france. this paper, which had supported francois hollande, talking about normal, this was the victory of mr. normal, a counterpart they think to the bling of president sarkozy. well, it was an extraordinary night in paris as people celebrated late into the night. let's get this report from our paris correspondent, christian

fraser. >> they jumped, they danced, they sipped beer and champagne. the red rose of the socialist party blooming again at the end of a long winter in opposition. >> we waited for francois hollande, and some of these people have waited over 17 years for this moment. this is a historic night for paris. it's the first time the capital city has voted for a socialist president, and here he is! >> mr. hollande feeds a renewed sense of hope that amid the use territories and cuts, there can be jobs and salaries, perhaps some cause for optimism. >> i have heard your will for change. i have heard your strength, your hope, and i want to express to you all my gratitude, thank you. thank you, people of france. >> president sarkozy was gracious in defeat and called

francois hollande to wish him luck. >> i take full responsibility for this defeat. i will tell you why. i fought on the principle of responsibility, and i am not a man who shirks responsibility. >> mr. hollande may offer a fresh start, but the debt problems remain the same. if the new president has his team around him, ready to select his first cabinet, he will know he needs to work quickly to reassure other eurozone countries he is up to the challenge. christian fraser, bbc news, paris. >> well, i'm joined here at our vantage point looking the eiffel tower by a socialist m.e.p. welcome to you. my first question, did you get any sleep last night? >> a little, but it was difficult to go to sleep because we're so excited. >> did you go to the party in bastille? >> yes, i did.

i first spoke and welcomed our foreign guest, where we had the prime minister from belgium and other guests from other socialist party, and then we all went together to the bastille. >> obviously quite a party. let's talk about the work that has to take place here in france. on the international stage, i would imagine francois hollande is one of the least well known world leaders. >> yep, but he has the biggest challenge in his hand, and i think for european leaders, even though they don't know him, they will come to know him very quickly, because if you see the time table for the three coming weeks, it's all about international engagement, and also, if he wants to implement any of the pieces he has promised the french people, he needs to win the european challenge. >> we're going to talk about greece in a moment when we go live to athens, but i just want to get your reflections. there does seem to be a coming together of certain things, the

socialist victory here in france last night, the rejection of mainstream politics in greece. it does seem to be that there's can a move towards austerity is having problems. >> well, you're saying, it but i can only improve what you're saying. >> no, it was a question. >> no, but raising the question is giving me the answer. it's a problem, because this is the kind of solution that has been proposed to other states since now more than two years, and it doesn't work. look at the results in greece, but also look at the reason, even more difficult, in spain. what is the future for this country only with austerity? how can you rebuild an economy only by giving less to its economy? >> but if you're going say, well, what we need to do, how come the solution to a debt problem -- how can the come to more debt be more borrowing? >> if you're only going to cut

spending, how do you earn money? it's not only about less spending, it's also about paying your debts. to pay your debts, you need to have some budget income. and to have some budget income, you need to have some world -- let's be consistent. it means you need to be on sustainable growth. that's the challenge. >> ok. what about the leverage? how difficult is it going to be for francois hollande? when he came to london, david cameron and the deputy prime minister didn't meet him. in germany, angela merkel said she was backing sarkozy. >> well, obviously the conservatives had their foes, and this is over now. now the reality and all these leaders are very pragmatic. they know it doesn't work what they've been implementing up to now. in france, they have a new competitor who is francois hollande, who's been supported very strongly by french people,

and they have to do with it. >> ok. thank you very much indeed for being with us. let us go now to athens, because i said we would go there now where they had their own general election which came to a very indecisive result. our correspondent is there for us now. and tim, i mean, what is happening in athens now? >> really, the results here are more confusing, even than people expected. the scale of the rejection of the two mainstream parties, the parties that backed the bailout more complete than people expected, and you can see here, this headline says punishment vote. so those two main parties knew democracy and socialist party have stopped being punished, and the far right, the far left being rewarded. this is what some of the people on the streets of athens have been saying this morning. >> in the next month, we have new elections.

the ability is far away. democracy, sure, we have democracy, but disability ending. >> -- but stability ending. >> not only the government, but the parliament. it's the same. for all of us. >> it's positive. now we know what people want. so we'll continue to live, but with little relation to reality. now we know what the reality is. >> tim, a couple of months ago, we were talking about how the greek debt crisis seemed to have sold in the parliament, to meet the conditions everybody set for them. is it fair to say now that the debt crisis is back?

>> absolutely. basically everything that was agreed with such difficulty a couple of months ago, that enormous bailout from the conditions for it, all that now is back on the table. the leader of what's now the biggest party, new democracy, he'll go to see the president this afternoon. he'll be asked to form a new government. he'll only have three days to try and form that coalition, but the problem is, his party, new democracy and the socialists, the two that backed the bailout, between them they haven't got past the seats in parliament. >> let's go from athens to berlin, speak to our correspondent there, steve evans. it does feel as though the political balance of power has shifted in europe, and not in the way that angela merkel would like, i would imagine. >> no, she can't like the

situation where deals were done with one person, who she very obviously backed, and that person doesn't win, and the new person says that those deals need to be renegotiated. the question will be whether the campaign rhetoric of mr. hollande translates into a firm demand to revisit that fiscal pact. that agreement among the 17 eurozone countries reached after i don't know how many sum its, whereby spending was constrained very, very tightly by revenue. if he really does come to berlin and says that berlin will be the first place he wants to talk to, if he does come to berlin and says it's all up for grabs, it needs to be renegotiated, then i'm absolutely positive there will be a problem, because mrs. merkel has indicated that cannot be renegotiated. if it is a change of tone, a change of rhetoric with much more hitting of that word

growth and much less hitting of that word austerity, that may be a different matter. so we wait to see whether the prevote rhetoric matches the post-vote action. >> yeah, of course, although the other thing, we've seen in brussels the kind of those to sort out the debt crisis. we've had a technocratic government installed. it's a very different matter when you've had people speaking themselves. the french people have given their verdict. the greek people have given their verdict. that puts brussels in an uncomfortable place. you can't say, i'm sorry, you have to do x. >> no, and chancellor merkel in berlin will see the message sent by those electorates as well. completely overshadowed was an election in germany over the weekend where she didn't do very well. she's a very astute politician,

and she also knows that growth plays better with voters, because growth means rising tax revenue, rising incomes. and already other politicians are using the word growth much more. so maybe what's happened in france, particularly, signals a change of mood really coming up from the ground. certainly in france, probably in germany, and that will mean that astute politicians will start to trim a little bit on the rudder. the immensely powerful influential finance maker, the maker and breaker of deals in the eurozone, has been talking about letting german wages -- or welcoming german wages rising a little bit, for example. so you get a sense that they're hearing those voices on the ground. because they'll also people that vote them in or vote them out in a year's time. so maybe what will happen is

mr. hollande will come here talking about growth and chance her merkel will say, yeah, we want growth and you can't get growth completely by tightening the belt. we need to adjust to that. so it's a question of whether it's a revisitation of deals that have been done or simply a changing of course somewhat. >> ok, steve evans in berlin, thank you very much for that here in paris. the sun has come out, it's shining, almost like a spring day. it hasn't been cold for several weeks. let's go outside to francois hollande's h.q., because he's in there. he's holding talks with key party officials. we're expecting people to be coming and going throughout the day as he starts to form -- a government starts to form. also, of course, planning those all-important legislative elections for june, which will

shape the national assembly and show where the balance of power in parliament lies, because with a socialist assembly, that will make life a good deal easier for him, and so he will try to keep that honeymoon effect going for as long as possible to take france into those legislative elections. that's the scene live there at hollande h.q. no doubt a bit of celebrating, maybe a few headache pills as well after last night. that's the scene here in paris. a lot more still to come from us. but for now, back to you in the studio in london. >> john sopel, many thanks. and thank you for watching here on "bbc world news." i'm david eades. still to come -- despite all the violence, syria goes to the polls for its first multiparty elections in more than 50 years. india has overtaken the u.s. as the world's biggest source of

electronic junk mail. one in 10 spam emails comes from or passes through computers in india, and experts say the rapid growth of internet use there has left many inexperienced buses unprotected against fraud. >> breaking down computers to service the parts is how this company makes its money. but it's a bigger i.p. problem that they're now worried about. the threat of sabotage is much more than simple data theft. it could be online banking or trading fraud or people being targeted by so-called phishing emails. on a bigger scale, the entire power grid of the city could be targeted. but the biggest worry, especially the government, is it can be used to weigh terror. right now, only 10% of indians are using the internet. as more and more people get online, many will be exposed to this virtual threat.

it's how to unblock common wire files is this 28-year-old man. he describes himself as an ethical hacker, someone who attacks an i.t. system on behalf of its owners to identify vulnerabilities, and had this helps the business protect its system against a malicious hacker. >> i think the cyberlaws in india are pretty strong, but the government has not trained the police department and the intelligence agencies well enough to implement the cyberlaws. so if you go to any police station and try to register a complaint, chances are they'll have no clue what you're talking about. >> while this is not new, cases of fraud have increased dramatically and targets are getting bigger. in india, cyberfraud could cost companies as much as 5% of their profit. so experts caution that there is an urgent need to put in place protection and police the web better.

>> you're watching "bbc world news" with me, david eades. the headlines this hour -- francois hollande is elected president of france as he promises an end to austerity across europe. the majority of voters in greece reject the main parties who agreed to the euro debt bailout. they may still cling on to power, though. >> coming up in sport today -- manchester city edge closer to the english premier league title. torres scores twice as they beat new castle. juventis get the title with a victory. and the l.a. kings reach the eastern conference finals, releasing the blues. that's all coming up in 30 minutes' time. >> vladimir putin has been sworn in for his third term as russian president, after four years as the country's prime minister. the ceremony itself went to the

grand kremlin palace this morning, against the back drop of continuing protests in central moscow. all very grand and opulent. at the ceremony, president putin talked of his obligations to the russian people and promised he will be an honest and predictable partner abroad. >> we will and we will live in a democratic country where everyone will have the freedom and space to use their talent and their work. we want to live in a russia that is respected around the world as a secure, honest, and predictable partner. i believe the strength of our common ideals and our determination to reform the country into the strength of our joint efforts, strive for freedom, for truth, and justice. >> joining me now is the person here translating vlad my --

vladimir if you pin. i just want to first of all, this is a big question mark over what we should expect from the next six years of putin as president. what do you think? >> putin would of course like is to believe that we should expect more of the same, more stability, more of continuous growth, more of development. but, of course, he also tries to stress that there's need for more organization. more organization was the key word of his spread success other, dmitry medvedev, and, of course, being aware of the huge wave of growth that has been sweeping over the entire russia, but certainly over moscow since december parliamentary elections. he is very well aware that things -- no matter how much he would like them to stay the same, they cannot really stay the same, that something needs to be done. >> and how much of an issue do you think for him the protests

against putin are? we had more demonstrations. we've had more arrests in the buildup to the inauguration. of course, we have weeks in the buildup to the election itself. how much is that going to bother him? >> well, he said want it very confidently, and, of course, that proved in his own eyes, first and foremost, and the eyes of the nation and of the world that he is a legitimate president, no matter what their position said. and that is a fact, which is really difficult to argue against. so he can resist and persist in the fact that a position is a tiny minority, that is there, but should be taken into account, but should not actually influence the politics of the nation. >> ok, well, it's always a grand and opulent occasion, isn't it? thank you very much.

elections everywhere, it seems. syria is holding parliamentary elections despite the ongoing violence in the country. they're the first multiparty elections since the adoption in february of a new constitution, which ended the ruling baath party's 50-year monopoly on power. the vote has been dismissed as a sham by the opposition, which is refusing to take part. our correspondent, rupert wingfield-hayes, joins me from neighboring beirut. rupert, sham or not, what's the expectation in terms of people who are actually going to cast their vote? >> it's very mixed picture, david, and it depends on which part of the country and who you talk to. if you're watching syrian state television, as i have been in the last few minutes from here in beirut, you would think that this is a normal election and a normal country, and that the process is going very, very well, that state tv from damascus is showing polling stations open, busy, interviewing people casting their votes this morning, expressing enthusiasm for doing

so. many people saying that this shows syrian democracy is moving forward. interestingly, many people holding up pictures of president al-assad. it's fairly clear where many of their support lies. but then in other parts of the country, reports from places like hama in central syria, which has been a stronghold of opposition to president assad's rule, a center of the uprising over the last year, well, the picture appears to be completely different. eyewitness reports there speaking to foreign media saying that the streets are quiet, there is a general strike in place, and that people are boycotting this vote. >> it's a vexing position in a way for the international community, isn't it? this is precisely the sort of thing they pushed for and wanted, just not under these circumstances. >> yes, i think the problem here for this process is credibility. you have to remember that this

is against the background of 14 months of conflict now, very, very serious violence inside syria, which is still going on as we speak. reports of three young men killed in clashes early this morning in the east of the country, and the figure, according to the united nations, of 9,000 people dead in that violence. so, to many people's minds, the opposition and many people outside syria, president assad's credibility is already completely destroyed and nothing will change until he himself goes. >> rupert, thanks very much, rupert wingfield-hayes in beirut. and that just about brings us to the end of the bulletin, but it gives me time to remind you nonetheless of the website, bbc.com/news, where you can also get details of other elections, not least in serbia, because they've been carrying out their own votes. this has been one in which the country's president of the

democratic party is now through a second round of voting, along with the national serbian progressive party. the progressives are said to be the largest party in parliament. the democrats are still expected to form a government in combination with the party who came third, and that's the socialists. also on the website, a nice sort of happy note to end on, two americans who were held in iran as spies have now married in california. shane bower and sarah shourd were two of three hikers released. they got engaged while they were in prison. bower's shirt was a thread for them, which they managed to fashion into an engagement ring. so as i say, all of that is on the website, bbc.com/news, an awful lot of election material coming in. you'll catch it all on the website.

>> make sense of international news at bbc.com/news. >> funding was made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu. newman's own foundation. and union bank. >> at union bank, our relationship managers use their expertise in global finance to guide you through the business strategies and opportunities of international commerce. we put our extended global network to work for a wide range of companies, from small businesses to major corporations. what can we do for you? >> bbc world news was presented by kcet los angeles.