Nicolas Sarkozy succeeded Jacques Chirac as French president yesterday, promising to usher in an era of change and restore national pride.
At the start of ceremonies mixing republican pageantry and symbolic gesture, Sarkozy was inaugurated under the chandeliers of the Elysee Palace, which will be his home for the next five years following his comprehensive election victory on May 6.
In his first speech in the opulent Salle des Fetes, the 52-year old Sarkozy vowed not to disappoint the French people.
"I will defend the independence of France. I will defend the identity of France," said Sarkozy, 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 in an apparent dig at Chirac, a former political mentor with whom he now has strained relations.
He also pledged to put the fight against global warming and the defense of human rights at the heart of his foreign policy.
Sarkozy first act after his speech was to greet family members, including his wife, Cecilia, who has hardly been seen in public this year fuelling speculation about their marriage.
Following a private lunch, Sarkozy rode in an opentop car up the Avenue des Champs Elysees, escorted by the mounted Republican Guard, and laid a floral tribute at the tomb of the unknown soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe.
Sarkozy plunged into the crowd to shake hands with well-wishers before laying wreaths at statues of France's World War I and World War II leaders -- Georges Clemenceau and General Charles de Gaulle.
He once again conducted a brief walkabout amid shouts of "Sarko" and "Nicolas" from the crowd.
Sarkozy was then driven to the Bois de Boulogne, a wooded park on the western edge of Paris, for a ceremony to commemorate 35 young French resistance fighters who were killed in a German ambush in August 1944.
Visibly moved when a girl recited a famous letter written by a 17 year-old Resistance member on the eve of his death, Sarkozy said the letter should be read out in schools at the start of every academic year.
He then headed off to Berlin to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a trip aimed at underscoring the importance of Franco-German relations.
Sarkozy is widely expected to name moderate conservative Francois Fillon as his prime minister today, and draft centrists and high-profile leftists into a streamlined Cabinet which will probably be unveiled tomorrow.
Looking to reach across political divides, he is expected to name Bernard Kouchner, a Socialist former health minister and human rights campaigner, as his foreign minister.
Chirac, who ruled for 12 years, met Sarkozy in private to give him the launch codes for France's nuclear strike force. He then drove off into retirement, with Sarkozy applauding and waving goodbye from the Elysee Palace courtyard.
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.
"From this day on and for the duration of your mandate, you embody France, symbolize the republic and represent all the French people," Debre said.
Sarkozy inherits a fractured society, dispirited by years of high unemployment, and says he will take a more hands-on approach than his predecessor.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS