AP Photo

The French have voted for François Hollande as their next president. Behind their choice was the important question of trust. In the US, opinion polls often ask voters whether they “trust” a candidate. In France, since 2007, the question has been moot. For French voters of all political affiliations, Nicolas Sarkozy had for the last five years pursued a vigorous platform of distrust — distrust of organized labor, welfare security, immigrants, rivals among the far right, and of compromise and traditional democratic process.