Sarkozy sworn in as new French president

Nicolas Sarkozy became president of France on Wednesday, replacing Jacques Chirac in an elaborate ceremony at the Elyse Palace.

The conservative Sarkozy, who won election May 6 on pledges of market reforms and a break with the past, formally assumed power after the election results were read out.

He was given a special necklace of linked medallions engraved with the names of past French presidents and his own.

Sarkozy will be "more implicated in daily affairs" than his predecessors, aide Henri Guaino said Wednesday, adding that the new president would lay out the "philosophy of his presidency" in his inauguration speech.

"He will communicate more, act more directly," Guaino said on Canal Plus television.

Sarkozy, 52, who won election May 6 on pledges of market reforms and a break with the past,is the sixth president of the Fifth Republic, founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1958.

Chirac, 74,stepped down after 12 years as president and four decades in politics. In his final presidential appeal Tuesday night, he urged his compatriots to stay united and proud, despite uncertainty about France's place in today's global economy and world affairs.

'Lead our nation forward'

"I know that the new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will endeavour to lead our nation forward on the paths of the future," Chirac said of Sarkozy, a proteg-turned-rival who has served in governments under Chirac but sought to distance himself from the economic stagnation and social tensions that marred Chirac's tenure.

Chirac on Tuesday expressed "pride in a duty fulfilled," but did not list any presidential accomplishments, and his statement lacked the eloquence and passion that has marked many of his speeches.

Chirac said France should be a nation of equal opportunity and an engine of European integration. Both appeals recalled low points of his tenure: the 2005 riots that laid bare deep-rooted discrimination against France's immigrants, and the French rejection of the EU constitution that Chirac had championed.

Even before taking office, Sarkozy sought to set himself apart from Chirac, holding surprising preinaugural meetings with labour unions and some leading Socialists.

Sarkozy is expected to appoint a fellow conservative, four-time former minister Franois Fillon, as prime minister in the coming days.

The popular Bernard Kouchner, a former Socialist health minister and founder of the Nobel-prize winning organization Doctors Without Borders, is among those being considered as new foreign minister.