in the last two years, 13 governments in the european union have either collapsed or been voted out of power. today, french president nicolas sarkozy is caught in a runoff with francois hollande that cast him his job. under sarkozy, france's unemployment climbing to 10%, while economic growth ground to a halt. also today, greece, a national election taking place in a society crushed by debt. greek unemployment now at 21%. up from just 9% before bailouts and austerity brought protesters to the streets. and as no other network can, we brought together cnn's best from around the world. veteran business correspondent john defterios from abu dhabi, he'll break down what you need to know. jim bittermann is live from paris at the headquarters of now defeated french president nicolas sarkozy. he just conceded to socialist francois hollande. matthew chance is in athens at the center of an election that also took place today, greek voters deciding whether they are willing to accept tough cuts to deal with the country's enormous debt. a greek default could crush america's own slow recovery. al goodman is in madrid, a country closely watching these election results with all of you. the unemployment situation is tough here in the u.s., in spain it's much worse. youth unemployment now above 50%. diana magnay is in berlin, up until now, germany has been the backbone of europe's economy and the main architect of austerity. is it going to be the next one to fall into recession? with me in new york, breaking down what europe's crisis means for the united states, christine romans, host of "your bottom line" and christie freeland, editor for thomsons reuters digital. today they fired french president nicolas sarkozy. he will be replaced by socialist francois hollande. sarkozy becomes the highest profile european leader ousted during the region's economic crisis. cnn's senior european correspondent jim bittermann joins us live from paris. jim? >> reporter: you know how they say you should have been here a day ago. you should have been here an hour and 15 minutes ago. this place was packed with sar k cozy supporters thinking he had a chance to win and he didn't win. he conceded defeat almost immediately when the numbers came from the television networks across the country, the exit polls. here is a little bit of the concession speech he gave to the followers here. >> translator: trance hfrance h republic, a new president, this is a choice. francois hollande is the president of france and must be respected. >> reporter: and while the crowd here is thinning out, one of the things that sarkozy said was that he was going to remain engaged in politics and that was a reference to something that is going to come down the line here in about five weeks' time. 10th of june, first round of the legislative elections here and these people, the folks that were here supporting sarkozy, very narrow defeat for sarkozy, and, in fact, they'll be out working to win seats in the parliament here in france. and that could lead to something that is even worse than what they think the hollande government will bring and that's gridlock. because as you know in the united states, when you have a congress of one party and a president from another, not a lot gets done and it could look like -- it looks like that is what we're headed towards here in france if these legislative elections come out the way these people would like tonight. >> that is why we're doing a live show about this for our u.s. audience because in are looking at europe today to wonder what this means for us. stand by, jim. we'll be back to you in a moment. look at this map of europe. the countries highlighted in yellow are all back in recession, including spain, greece and the united kingdom, notably france isn't there. 12 european countries all together are in recession and that is raising concerns that our sluggish recovery could fizzle out. europe taken as a whole is -- as large an economy as the united states. so all eyes are on jobs. people losing jobs don't spend money. they don't buy american made goods or services. christine roman has come armed with numbers about the comparison in unemployment. christine in. >> unemployment here in the u.s. currently 8.1% as you know. situation in most of europe is far worse. look at the 17 countries where they constitute the eurozone and use the euro as the currency. unemployment is at the highest level overall since 1999. and spain's jobless rate is above 24%. italy is at a 12-year high, almost 10%. greece, portugal, ireland, all above the 14% mark. greece, almost 22%. the three largest economies in the eu are faring a little better, ali. france has a 10% unemployment rate. germany, 5.6% unemployment. britain, which still uses the pound, is not a member of the eurozone but a very important demographic in all of this, it is at 8%. clearly tough times for europe and the concern is if you have fewer euros or pounds in your pocket, you're not spending them on american made goods and that slows the u.s. recovery as well. >> we talk about a spillover effect, it is not like a cup of coffee that spills over and you have coffee on you, it has to do with whether or not you as a country are doing the right things to brace for this coming storm. to john defterios. when it comes to the economy, greece is a country that has quite possibly done about everything wrong. the government agreed to tough cuts in exchange for being bailed out but voters are not happy. today they are expected to try and slow if not halt those cuts altogeth altogether. explain, john, to our u.s. audience the scope of the problem, just how much trouble is greece actually in. >> it is in a league of its own. you think of a recession in europe or the united states, you say 12 to 18 months of recession. greece right now is in the fifth year of recession. it is hard to compete with anybody else in that sort of figure. fifth year of recession, expected to contract another 5% in 2012 after contracting 5.5% last year. look at this number this is quite shocking. this is the way you saw greece going to parliament square, protesting against the austerity cuts. the gdp lost 20% alone since 2009. christine signaled greece in terms of the overall european map of the unemployment situation. if you single out the youth unemployment in greece, it is dire. one out of two greeks between the age of 15 and 24 without a job. 51.2% the unemployment rate at 21.7%. the big question now, this is why people in the united states have been focusing on this what happens next? will greece come out and see the light at the end of the tunnel? if you look at the debt to gdp, the answer is no. 2011, the debt to gdp, highest in europe, at 165%. if you roll back the clock on the greek debt to gdp, it was at 120% in 2008. look at this, ali, roll the clock forward to 2020, the greeks will be where they started back in 2008 at 120% of gdp. t greeks on the ground today when they were voting and they had two huge columns of the parties getting 80% or more, the early exit polls show they're getting a third and that's the reason why. they say we have all this austerity and really nothing at the end of the tunnel to show for that austerity in a ten-year period. >> once again, a topic interesting to our u.s. viewers. if you're going to take some pain, many people would like to see there would be some gains, some recovery and that's been something so difficult for politicians to show the greek people and it is a difficulty to continue right now. john, stand by. joining us overlooking parliament square in athens is cnn's matthew chance. how is it going over in athens now? >> reporter: it has been a political earthquake here, nothing short of it. the traditional party as john was saying there that dominated greek politics for the last three or four decades, they have been essentially swept aside by the greek electorate. polling just about making it in double digits. it is incredible the a support that flowed away from them. the parties that have benefited are on the fringe of the greek political debate. the communists, people like that. it really is a huge protest vote against the austerity measures that greek people had to endure. this is the first time in two years that greeks had a chance to make their opinions heard at the ballet box and they delivered an absolutely devastating message to those traditional parties, those supporters of the austerity measures, the ones that pushed them through and imposed them on the people of this country, they're looking elsewhere it seems for solutions. >> here is the problem, matthew, our viewers will be more familiar with the unrest in greece than anywhere else. it was more clear that voters in greece didn't like any of this. you remember last year, we would see those rites in the streets of france. what now happens? the greeks said we don't like this austerity, but their government won't be able to get any further in terms of loan guarantees. they owe so many people so much money. what happens now? >> reporter: much of it depends on what the outcome of this election is tonight. we haven't had the results in yet. we just had exit polls. the votes are still being counted. it is a very complex political system as well. it is proportional representation. the seats will be distributed according to the percentage that each party has. it is when we get the final seats, we can add up the numbers, no single party will get an outright majority, but will there be enough seats among the parties that support austerity? need 151 seats between them. will there be enough seats between them to continue greece standard's path of austerity or is this country going to do a u-turn f it reneges on its commitments that is going to send shock waves not just through greece, but throughout the rest of the world and certainly the united states. >> very important question, not just what people want to happen, it is what is possible to happen. matthew, stand by there as you rightly point out. we're waiting for the results in greece. we have them from france. nicolas sarkozy who you see her in his car driving away, has conceded victory to francois hollande, a socialist. very fast to concede before all the votes were counted. he knew it was over for france, one of the largest economies in the world. big questions if francois hollande will do what he said he's going to do and how the world and the markets and 401(k) will respond to that. up next, insight and later live to madrid and look at spain. one country in europe did most things right and still got dragged under by the financial crisis. this man is about to be the millionth customer. would you mind if i go ahead of you? instead we had someone go ahead of him and win fifty thousand dollars. congratulations you are our one millionth customer. people don't like to miss out on money that should have been theirs. that's why at ally we 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[ male announcer ] we are insurance. ♪ we are farmers ♪ bum, ba-da-bum, bum, bum, bum ♪ you're watching a special live edition of "your money," covering the election results in france and greece. if you just joined us, the french president nicolas sarkozy has conceded defeat to his socialist rival francois hollande in paris. we're waiting for final results in greece. it seems that both nations are rejecting austerity. the idea of government cutbacks because of the pain that it is causing on the ground. john defterios is in awe abu dhabi. christine is with me here in new york. christa freeland, at thompsons reuters. what is going through your mind as you watch this. >> to me, the most important question is does this trigger a new round of the euro crisis. you've been making parallels between the plight of a greece, the plight of a spain, and the potential debt crisis in the united states. but there is a big difference. these guys do not control their own currencies. if you control your own currency in a situation like this, you can print money to pay off your debt or you can devalue your currency and that's a way to restore economic competitiveness. they don't have that option now. does this mean that you start a gain to have countries starting with greece say actually this europe thing it not working for us. >> it works out for my viewer. what happened if the eurozone starts to come apart, if countries stacountry s stop using the currency. does that weaken the currency overall? >> what it could mean, there isn't the -- the euro was sort of constructed like a roach motel. you could go in, but you couldn't go out. that was on purpose because the politicians who created it were real believers in europe. they thought this was the way to avoid another world war. so they wanted to create first an economic union and hoped a political union would follow. if it starts to fall apart my fear and what i think president obama's fear should be is does it send shock waves through the world economy and we would feel those here in the united states pretty quickly. >> we learned this in 2008, john that when a bank sneezes across the world, it could shut down your loan here in the united states. how much damage can a failed greece do to the global economy? >> it is ironic we're talking about it because it is only a $300 billion economy as i noted here. it shrunk by 20% since the start of this crisis. but the fact is, and christa makes a good point, if one of the members of the eurozone, one of the 17 decides to duck out, it puts the whole project into question. we should look back here on what happened, the fall of the berlin wall 1989 led the european union leaders to try to come together with union as a trade union, but also in ten short years after that, introduce a single currency. the reality is we have a two speed europe, something the architects of the europe didn't want to have, germany, france, the netherlands, the uk, not a member of the eurozone, and then the southern half of the continent, spain, portugal, italy and greece unable to grow right now. you have an unemployment rate of 21% in greece. youth unemployment of better than 50%. but the greeks fell asleep during the first ten years of having that currency. they had the benefit of low interest rates from germany. so instead of reforming their labor market, they borrowed a lot of money, had a lot of money come in to fund the building of the olympics in 2004. they're growing at 4%. that was the time to reform. with all candor here, for the first ten years of the currency they didn't reform. the payback now is a very severe one. it would be ironic that the smallest economy in europe could bring down the euro project going forward. >> that's why we're paying so much attention to greece today when in fact france is a huge economy. concerns about the french economy are very real. what you're looking at here are photographs of -- video, live video of francois hollande. he is the president-elect in paris. nicolas sarkozy has been defeated and conceded. you now see under police escort francois hollande, the next president of paris, headed in a motorcade toward his headquarters where he will be greeted by remarkably jubilant supporters. not just because he's won, but to many people who have felt crushed, crushed by the kind of austerity we're seeing in europe, christine, in france, it hasn't been anywhere near how bad it was for citizens in greece and yet they're coming and saying what you keep hearing in the united states, there are many people who say we need austerity, we need to balance the budgets and what you're seeing in france and greece in this motorcade for a new president is a rejection of that. >> living within your means, ali, is something that everyone says they want to do, but these voters and these countries show that living within your means and how you do that can be very painful and voters reacting very strongly to that notion. what are the messages for u.s. politicians? in the united states, i argue we haven't had austerity yet. we're running huge budget deficits. we have a debt -- a national debt the size of the u.s. economy still. and where we had cutbacks has been budget cuts on the state and local level and that has hurt. americans have a taste of this belt tightening but nothing like you've seen in europe. the message for u.s. politicians is to do it properly, at the right time, or your electorate will revolt. >> the message may be don't take one extreme or another. the solution may be a little bit of all or a gradual move into austerity. these guys are paying a price for rapid austerity that they didn't care about. we'll take a quick break and look at what you're seeing there is the motorcade taking francois hollande, the newly elected president of france to his headquarters where he'll deliver a speech. two recessions in three years. al goodman from madrid for a look at how spain has been hit by the financial crisis, a country that didn't do it all wrong now half its young people are unemployed. you're watching a special live edition of "your money." stay with us. jen's car wasn't handling well. so i brought it to mike at meineke. we gave her car a free road handling check. i like free. free is good. my money. my choice. my meineke. to our viewers, you're looking at francois hollande, the president-elect of france, having just arrived at his headquarters in tulle, france. business he's about to give a -- he's defeated president nicolas sarkozy who conceded. let's listen in to the new -- the next president of france, francois hollande. [ cheers and applause ] >> translator: my dear citizens, fellow citizens, french people, this 6th of may has just chosen change by bringing me the presidency of the french republic. i feel the honor which has been given to me and the task, the important task faced beyond -- in front of you to serve my country. i commit myself to serve my country. with devotion of this function, the requirements and on this subject, i'd like to congratulate nicolas sarkozy who led this country for five years and who on this subject deserves all our respect. i express my deep gratitude to all those who, through their votes, have made this victory possib possible. >> we're going to keep an eye on that speech. we'll bring you all the relevant parts, francois hollande who just won the election, the presidential election in france. we're bouncing around. we have france, we have greece, we're waiting for results to come in, but it may look similar. wasn't to bri i want to bring in spain. there isn't an election here but we keep talking about contagion what happens to other countries. spain is struggling with an aftermath of a housing market that went bust. spain didn't do everything wrong like greece did. christine