Monsieur le Président - For non Francophones

Voilà the inaugural post of an English-language blog on rue89, which is hopefully just the beginning of rue89's engagement with non-Francophone readers. This blog will look at French politics, media and culture with an American eye, while also training that eye back on the States.

It seems only fitting to begin on a day of other new ventures in France, namely the inauguration of the new president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Here we go. For an American watching the new French president taking office, what's most noticeable is what's missing : an oath. Americans are long accustomed to the image of a new-as well as re-elected-president on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, raising his right hand and swearing on the bible to uphold the Constitution.

Today, we saw Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysée Palace -the presidential residence and office- walk the outgoing president Jacques Chirac down the red carpet to his awaiting car, where they shook hands and shared a few words, making millions of amateur lip-readers out of the folks watching at home (see video here). The president -elect then headed back inside where the election's official vote count is read by the head of the Constitutional Council who then states that the fellow standing in front of him is the new president of the Republic. Newly invested with the power, he signs a document, and that's it. No oath spoken aloud by the president, just the simple declaration by someone else that he is now, well, The Man.

Most striking of all, though, is the location itself of the ceremony. Because American presidential inaugurations take place in front of Congress, the very act is a symbol of the (ideally) shared balance of power between the various branches of government, rather than being entirely focused the executive branch as we saw here today.

Equally odd is that the official vote count is read (which surely would have been an embarrassment to George Bush in 2000 were it to be an American custom as well), leaving a whiff of politics and campaign in the air on a day that is supposed to purely be about the government and not the battle to lead it. But of course here the new French president takes office a mere and perhaps too -quick ten days after the election- again, an impossibility in the U.S. in 2000 for obvious reasons-compared to two and a half months for an American president. Something between the two deadlines would seem about right.

The new president then gave a brief speech that in essence quite similar to his campaign speeches about the challenges that lie ahead. Perhaps because it is indoors, it doesn't have the booming grandeur and momentous quality that has kept inaugural addresses and the famous quotes from them part of contemporary American discourse.

But for all the talk of « Sarko the American, » this is still a very classic European and vaguely royal way of inaugurating a new leader. Sarko -excuse me, President Sarkozy- speaks of « rupture » with the past, even from his own right-of-center party's history. And yet it seems to me he's going be playing the trapeze artist, trying to balance between the tradition that is expected of him and the platform of change that he was elected upon. For the French and the rest of the world, these next five years of l'Administration Sarkozy are going to be interesting, to say the least.