Yeah, "conservative" by french standards is more like left-tinged moderate by ours so I don't really see why con pundits are celebrating this early. Sarkozy is a step in the right direction IMO, but as others stated..it remains to be seen if he can really tackle those socialist issues without loosing control of the state.
He indicates that France may be more cooperative in the war on terror, but there's no way they'll get involved in Iraq...unless there's lots of $$ to be made, of course.