Nicolas Sarkozy succeeded Jacques Chirac as French president
yesterday in a simple ceremony, where he promised to unite France
and restore national pride.
Sarkozy was invested under the chandeliers of the Elysee Palace,
which will be his home for the next five years following his
comprehensive election victory earlier this month. In his inaugural
address in the gilded Salle des Fetes, shortly after his
predecessor drove off into retirement, Sarkozy vowed he would not
disappoint the French people.
"I will defend the independence of France. I will defend the
identity of France," said the conservative leader, who is 52 and
the first French head of state to be born after World War II.
"There is a need to unite the French people ... and to meet
commitments because never before has (public) confidence been so
shaken and so fragile," he said.
He also pledged to put the fight against global warming and the
defense of human rights at the heart of his foreign policy.
His first gesture after his speech was to greet family members
including his wife Cecilia, who has hardly been seen in public this
year fuelling relentless speculation about their marriage, to whom
he gave an affectionate caress on the cheek.
Sarkozy is widely expected to name moderate conservative
Francois Fillon as his prime minister, and draft centrists and
high-profile leftists into a streamlined cabinet whose line-up will
probably be announced today.
Chirac, who ruled for 12 years, met Sarkozy for half an hour in
private to give him the launch codes for France's nuclear strike
force. He then left the Elysee to cheers, with Sarkozy applauding
and waving goodbye from the palace courtyard.
The office he inherits wields more powers than any other elected
Western leader.
A 21-gun salute resounded near the tomb of the emperor Napoleon
across the river Seine as Constitutional Council President
Jean-Louis Debre proclaimed Sarkozy the sixth president of France's
Fifth Republic.
Sarkozy inherits a fractured society, dispirited by years of
high unemployment, and says he will take a more hands-on approach
than his predecessor, who was criticized for failing to introduce
badly-needed reforms in hidebound France.
(China Daily May 17, 2007)
