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Socialist Francois Hollande defeated conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday to become France’s next president, heralding a change in how Europe tackles its debt crisis and how France flexes its military and diplomatic muscle around the world.

Exuberant, diverse crowds filled the Place de la Bastille, the iconic plaza of the French Revolution, to fete Hollande’s victory, waving French, European and labor union flags and climbing the column that rises at its center. Leftists are overjoyed to have one of their own in power for the first time since Socialist Francois Mitterrand was president from 1981 to 1995.

“Austerity can no longer be inevitable!” Hollande declared in his victory speech Sunday night after a surprising campaign that saw him transform from an unremarkable, mild figure to an increasingly statesmanlike one.

Sarkozy is the latest victim of a wave of voter anger at government spending cuts around Europe that have tossed out governments and leaders over the past couple of years.

In Greece, a parliamentary vote Sunday is seen as critical to the country’s prospects for pulling out of a deep financial crisis felt in world markets. A state election in Germany and local elections in Italy were seen as tests of support for the national government’s policies.

Hollande promised help for France’s downtrodden after years under the Sarkozy, a man many voters saw as too friendly with the rich and blamed for economic troubles.

Hollande said European partners should be relieved and not frightened by his presidency.

“I am proud to have been capable of giving people hope again,” Hollande told huge crowds of supporters in his electoral fiefdom of Tulle in central France. “We will succeed!”

Hollande inherits an economy that’s a driver of the European Union but is deep in debt. He wants more government stimulus, and more government spending in general, despite concerns in the markets that France needs to urgently trim its huge debt.

Sarkozy conceded defeat minutes after the polls closed, saying he had called Hollande to wish him “good luck” as the country’s new leader.

Sarkozy, widely disliked for budget cuts and his handling of the economy during recent crises, said he did his best to win a second term, despite widespread anger at his handling of the economy.

“I bear responsibility … for the defeat,” he said. “I committed myself totally, fully, but I didn’t succeed in convincing a majority of French. … I didn’t succeed in making the values we share win.”

With 75 percent of the vote counted, official results showed Hollande with 51.1 percent of the vote compared with Sarkozy’s 48.9 percent, the Interior Ministry said. The CSA, TNS-Sofres and Ipsos polling agencies all predicted a Hollande win as well paydayloans.

Hollande has virtually no foreign policy experience but he will face his first tests right after his inauguration, which must happen no later than May 16.

Among his first trips will be to the United States later this month for summits of NATO _ where he will announce he is pulling French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year _ and the Group of Eight leading world economies.

Hollande’s first challenge will be dealing with Germany: He wants to re-negotiate a hard-won European treaty on budget cuts that Germany’s Angela Merkel and Sarkozy had championed. He promises to make his first foreign trip to Berlin to work on a relationship that has been at the heart of Europe’s postwar unity.

Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, congratulated Hollande on Sunday night and said both countries will keep on cooperating closely in driving the European Union’s policies and be “a stabilizing factor and a motor for the European Union.”

At home, Hollande intends to modify one of Sarkozy’s key reforms, over the retirement age, to allow some people to retire at 60 instead of 62. He also plans to increase spending in a range of sectors and wants to ease France off its dependence on nuclear energy. He favors legalizing euthanasia and gay marriage.

Sarkozy supporters call those proposals misguided.

“We’re going to call France the new Greece,” said Laetitia Barone, 19. “Hollande is now very dangerous.”

Sarkozy had said he would quit politics if he lost, but was vague about his plans Sunday night.

“You can count on me to defend these ideas, convictions,” he said, “but my place cannot be the same.”

His political allies turned their attention to parliamentary elections next month.

People of all ages and different ethnicities celebrated Hollande’s victory at the Bastille. Ghylaine Lambrecht, 60, who celebrated the 1981 victory of Mitterrand at the Bastille, was among them.

“I’m so happy. We had to put up with Sarko for 10 years,” she said referring to Sarkozy’s time as interior and finance minister and five years as president. “In the last few years the rich have been getting richer. Now long live France, an open democratic France.”

“It’s magic!” said Violaine Chenais, 19. “I think Francois Hollande is not perfect, but it’s clear France thinks its time to give the left a chance. This means real hope for France. We’re going to celebrate with drink and hopefully some dancing.”

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Rupert Murdoch’s News International is challenging celebrity phone hacking victim Sienna Miller over her legal bill, a person close to the case said late Wednesday.

Miller was one of the first public figures to take the British newspaper company to court for illegally eavesdropping on her telephone messages.

In May, News International agreed to pay the “Alfie” star 100,000 pounds (about $160,000) to settle her claim, but a person close to the case says there’s been no agreement how much to pay out in legal costs and that the issue is headed to court.

The person provided no detail as to when any potential hearing would take place, speaking anonymously because the information wasn’t cleared for release.

News International spokeswoman Daisy Dunlop declined comment, as did Miller’s lawyer, Mark Thomson.

The scandal over illegal interception of voicemail messages at News International’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid has taken a bite out of parent company News Corp.’s bottom line. In February, Murdoch’s international media company disclosed that legal bills linked to police and parliamentary probes, a judge-led inquiry, and a slew of lawsuits was close to $200 million.

In the last quarter of 2011 alone, the company paid out $87 million, the vast majority of which was for legal and consulting fees.

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Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty plans to include new measures to expedite environmental approvals for energy projects in next week

Mexican Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade said policy makers should avoid unilateral devaluations to boost economic competitiveness, website Emerging Markets reported.

Meade, who is serving as head of the Group of 20 nations, said relying on short-term devaluations will do less to help countries boost growth in the aftermath of the European debt crisis than policies to increase domestic demand, consumption and investment, Emerging Markets said easy payday loans.

A meeting of G-20 representatives in Los Cabos, Mexico, in June will focus partly on currency imbalances, Meade said in an interview with the website.

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Federal regulators said Tuesday that they’ve approved new suppliers for two crucial cancer drugs, easing critical shortages _ at least for the time being _ that have patients worried about missing life-saving treatments.

The Food and Drug Administration said it will temporarily allow importation of a replacement drug for Doxil, a drug for ovarian and other cancers that hasn’t been available for new patients for months.

The agency also has approved another supplier for a preservative-free version of methotrexate, a crucial drug for children with a type of leukemia called ALL and for high-dose treatment of bone cancer. The version with preservatives can be toxic or cause paralysis in children and other patients getting the drug high doses.

The FDA also has approved the release of a batch manufactured by Ben Venue Laboratories Inc., shortly before it closed several factories and its complex in Bedford, Ohio, possibly for a year, due to serious quality problems. That closing is what turned the on-again, off-again methotrexate shortage that began in late 2008 into a crisis almost overnight, with fears that patients would begin missing treatments as soon as the end of this month.

The FDA increasingly has been able to prevent drug shortages by getting advance notice from manufacturers, with 195 shortages prevented in 2011, mostly late in the year after President Obama issued an executive order giving FDA additional powers to address the shortages. Still, about 280 drugs are in short supply.

“A drug shortage can be a frightening prospect for patients,” FDA Dr. Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg said in a statement. “Through the collaborative work of FDA, industry and other stakeholders, patients and families waiting for these products or anxious about their availability should now be able to get the medication they need.”

Drug shortages have increased dramatically in the U.S. over the past six years, particularly for generic injected drugs, which are the workhorses of hospitals but are difficult to make and produce little profit for drugmakers.

The shortages are caused primarily by problems with sterility and other serious issues that have led to shutdowns of production lines and occasionally entire factories. In addition, consolidation among generic drug manufacturers, as well as manufacturers deciding to end production of marginally profitable drugs, has led to decreased capacity. That means when one manufacturer suddenly stops production, the small number of others making a drug can’t quickly pick up slack.

The inability to get crucial medicines has disrupted not only carefully timed chemotherapy regimens, but surgery and care for patients with infections, pain and other serious conditions. At least 15 deaths since 2010 have been blamed on the shortages, which have set a record high in each of the last five years.

Of late, the cancer drug shortages have attracted the most attention, partly because missing multiple treatments can sharply reduce the chances of curing the disease. In the case of methotrexate, its use as part of the treatment for acute lymphoblastic lymphoma results in nearly 90 percent of children being cured, so parents and doctors were particularly upset at the prospect of it not being available.

The FDA said Tuesday it has temporarily approved importing an alternative to Doxil called Lipodox, made by Sun Pharma Global FZE. It’s also given approval to APP Pharmaceuticals to begin making a preservative-free version of methotrexate in addition to its current drug that includes preservatives.

The agency was to discuss details of its efforts on the two cancer drugs at a noon news conference.

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Italian Coast Guard divers have found a woman’s body in a corridor of a submerged section of the capsized Costa Concordia, raising to at least 12 the number of dead in the cruise liner accident.

Coast Guard Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro told The Associated Press that the body, wearing a life jacket, was found in a narrow corridor near an evacuation staging point at the ship’s rear Saturday.

The body was brought to Giglio, the Tuscan island where the cruise liner hit a reef and ran aground on Jan. 14. Twenty people are missing.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

ROME (AP) _ Italian Coast Guard divers have found a woman’s body in a corridor of a submerged section of the capsized Costa Concordia, raising to at least 12 the number of dead in the cruise liner accident.

Coast Guard Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro told The Associated Press that the body, wearing a life jacket, was found in a narrow corridor near an evacuation staging point at the ship’s rear.

The body was brought to Giglio, the Tuscan island where the cruise liner hit a reef and ran aground on Jan. 14. Twenty persons are missing.

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Italian officials have lowered the number of people still unaccounted-for in the grounding of a cruise ship off Tuscany.

Tuscany’s regional president Enrico Rossi said that there were now six crew members and 11 passengers who haven’t been located out of the 4,200-plus people who were aboard the Costa Concordia when it struck a reef and capsized Friday night.

Three people have been confirmed killed and three people were rescued more than 24 hours after the disaster: a South Korean honeymooning couple and an Italian member of the ship’s crew, who was hoisted to safety Sunday afternoon by helicopter.

The Concordia’s commander has been detained on accusations of manslaughter and abandoning the ship. He has said the reef wasn’t marked.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

GIGLIO, Italy (AP) _ An Italian prosecutor has confirmed allegations from passengers and others that the captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia abandoned the stricken liner before all the passengers had left.

Three people are confirmed dead after the huge cruise ship carrying more than 4,200 people ran aground on Friday night.

Asked Sunday by Sky Italia TV about allegations that the captain had left the ship before the last passenger had been rescued, Grosseto prosecutor Francesco Verusio replied, “Unfortunately I must confirm that circumstance.”

The captain, Francesco Schettino, was detained for questioning for suspected manslaughter, abandoning ship before all others and causing a shipwreck.

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The road has been heavily patched, and there’s no room to pull over to change a tire.

Welcome to the twin Interstate 270 bridges over the Chain of Rocks Canal, the 8½-mile, manmade bypass to the Mississippi River.

The Illinois Department of Transportation will soon replace the aging spans in Madison County. Built in 1963, the truss bridges are in need of repair and are too narrow to accommodate more lanes in the future.

Walsh Construction Co. of Chicago has been awarded a $104 million contract to build the new four-lane bridge, which will be just north of the existing bridges.

Traffic will remain on the existing bridges while the new span is built, said Paul Grabowski, an engineer at the Illinois Department of Transportation. He predicted “minimal” effects on traffic while construction is under way. The new bridge should be open to traffic by December 2013.

The plan stands in sharp contrast to the one being used by the Missouri Department of Transportation to renovate the westbound Blanchette Bridge span over the Missouri River between St. Charles and St. Louis counties.

That project, which is also being carried out by Walsh Construction, will require eastbound and westbound traffic to temporarily share the current eastbound span.

For the Illinois bridge, Grabowski said, some earthwork already has begun on Chouteau Island, between the Mississippi River and the canal, in preparation for temporary lanes. Earth is also being moved near the western abutment.

The new bridge will have room for a third lane in the future. Until then, the bridge will have two lanes and an extra merging lane cash advance loan no fax.

Grabowski said the deck was in poor condition and the structural steel needed repair.

The truss spans over Chain of Rocks Canal are similar to the Interstate 35W bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis in 2007. But Grabowski said it was structurally adequate.

The new bridge will be a single span and will resemble the Poplar Street Bridge.

Glenn Scott of Wildwood drives over the two bridges every day while making his 49-mile commute to work in the Metro East.

Although he travels in the opposite direction of the heaviest commuter traffic, he has been caught in traffic jams when highway crews make frequent repairs. That kind of work is usually done at nonpeak times of day.

“It definitely is one of the worst sections of road I drive on on any kind of regular basis,” Scott said. “As often as they’ve worked on that section of roadway, you’d think it would be in pristine shape. But it’s really pretty rough.”

The new I-270 bridge will cross the Chain of Rocks Canal, which opened in 1954. The canal allows barge traffic to bypass a treacherous reach of the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis.

Illinois is awaiting necessary permits from the Army Corps of Engineers. Mike Petersen, a spokesman for the corps, said the agency was reviewing the project before granting IDOT a temporary easement to begin construction.

The current I-270 bridges over the Chain of Rocks Canal carry nearly 55,000 cars a day.

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Blue Coat Systems, a provider of Internet networking and security products, says it has agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in a $1.3 billion deal.

Blue Coat Systems Inc. said Friday that its shareholders will receive $25.81 for each of the company’s stock they own. That’s a 48 percent premium over Blue Coat’s closing stock price Thursday.

Blue Coat has been working to turn its business around in a challenging time for the networking equipment industry pay day loans. Based on Thursday’s closing, its stock is down 41.5 percent year-to-date.

The company sells WAN, or “wide area network” optimization technology. This helps boost the performance of applications shared over computer networks.

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