page_title: Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy
section_title: Transfer of power
hierarchical_section_title: Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy / Transfer of power
caption_attribution_description: English: French president, Nicolas Sarkozy
context_page_description: The presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy began on 16 May 2007 when Nicolas Sarkozy became the sixth President of the French Fifth Republic, following his victory in the 2007 presidential election. A candidate of the conservative Union for a Popular Movement, he nominated François Fillon as Prime minister, who formed a composite government, a bit modified following the UMP's relative victory during the June legislative election. Although the UMP had not obtained a majority as large as expected, Nicolas Sarkozy could launch the reforms he had pledged as a candidate as soon as he was elected. However, he tried to open his government to the opposition party, appointing several politicians close to the opposition parties.
  With the quinquennat reform of 2000, the president of the republic has a five-year term to lead freely the domestic policy he wants, if ever he obtains the majority at the legislative election, which is very likely to occur. Traditionally, according to the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic, the main role of the President of the Republic is to determine the foreign policy of the nation, while the Prime Minister is entrusted with leading the domestic policy.
context_section_description: Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president on 6 May 2007, but the official transmission of power took place ten days after. In this period of time, he could not exercise his power nor begin appointing a government. Between 7 and 9 May, he left on holidays with his family off Malta on board a yacht lent by a friend of M.Sarkozy's, Vincent Bolloré. This trip gave rise to some criticism in the media, because Vincent Bolloré was the chairman of the Bolloré Group, one of the biggest and most powerful French conglomerates. However, a poll showed that a majority of people found that this trip was not shocking.
  The official transfer of power from Jacques Chirac took place on 16 May at 11:00 am (9:00 UTC) at the Élysée Palace, where Nicolas Sarkozy was given the nuclear codes of the French nuclear arsenal and presented with the Grand Master's Collar, symbol of his new function of Grand Master of the Legion of Honour. At that point, he formally became president. Leyenda, by Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz was played in honour of the president's wife. Both Sarkozy's mother Andrée, and his formerly estranged father Pal — with whom Sarkozy had reached a reconciliation — attended the ceremony, as did Sarkozy's children.
  The presidential motorcade then travelled from the Élysée to the Champs-Élysées for a public ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe. Then the new president went to the Cascade du Bois de Boulogne of Paris for a homage to the French Resistance and to the Communist resistant Guy Moquet — he proposed that all high-school students read Guy Moquet's last letter to his parents, which was criticized by a number of leftists as a cynical form of reappropriation of French history by the right.
  In the afternoon, the new president flew to Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
caption: President Sarkozy in 2007
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