Sarkozy sworn in as France's President
Updated on 16 May 2007
It's a march de triomphe as Nicolas Sarkozy is inaugurated as the new president of France.
He's promised a break with France's past, though today Nicolas Sarkozy was revelling in it.
The 23rd president of a country which once beheaded its royalty but has kept its pageantry intact. And at 52, Sarkozy the first French president to be born since World War 2 ended.
So out with the old and in with the new. Jacques Chirac now 74, handing the former protégé he's now said to detest the keys to the Elysee palace and the codes to France's nuclear arsenal.
Chirac twice president twice prime minister, so long in office, yet accused of achieving so little. Famous above all for opposing the Iraq war, though being famous for not doing something may not a presidential legacy make.
Beneath the palace chandeliers, Sarkozy appearing like a King before his court. His once estranged wife Cecilia and their ten-year-old son at his side as he was awarded the legion of honour.
He said he wanted to unite France, to revive its work ethic and to tackle its violence. Observers noting how the President had disowned the Chirac years just as soon as his predecessor had walked out of the door.
Sarkozy listed human rights and global warming as his foreign priorities, though tonight he's in Germany with Chancellor Merkel, trying to resuscitate an EU constitution.
But France's internal problems loom far larger. This president a man in a hurry to cut taxes, reform France's 35 hour week and reduce the right to strike.
Sarkozy determined he says defend the identity of France, though if he has his way his country may be in for a bumpy ride.
