(Reuters) – Francois Hollande was sworn in as France’s first Socialist president in 17 years in a
brief ceremony on Tuesday before a dash to Berlin to challenge German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
austerity prescription for Europe.
In his inaugural speech to
some 400 guests, Hollande said he would seek to amend a European pact to add growth-boosting measures
to deficit-cutting policies that critics say are dampening the bloc’s growth prospects.
Marking
his differences with outgoing President Nicolas Sarkozy, who some faulted for being all-controlling and
too impulsive, Hollande said he would run a “dignified” and “sober” presidency and ensure parliament
plays its full role.
“I will set the priorities but I will not decide for everyone, on
everything and (be) everywhere,” Hollande said.
Hollande, whose election comes as the euro zone is
teetering back into crisis over fears about Greece’s future in the single currency, will give his
first presidential news conference in Berlin in the evening, flanked by the centre-right
Merkel.
His comments will be keenly watched by financial markets eager for reassurance that his
push to tack pro-growth instruments onto Europe’s budget discipline treaty will not sour the start of
his relationship with Merkel.
Jean-Pierre Jouyet, a friend of three decades and a seasoned
European affairs specialist, said the Berlin meeting was sure to go well but that this did not mean
Hollande would be unable to press his case with Merkel for a more pro-growth strategy.
“It will
go well in terms of form because Francois Hollande is courteous and so is Angela Merkel,” Jouyet, head
of France’s financial markets regulator, told RTL radio. “In terms of substance, neither has lessons
to give the other.”
Any indications on initial economic policy will be scrutinized both outside
France and inside,
where frustration over rampant unemployment and a sickly economy were key factors behind conservative
Nicolas Sarkozy’s defeat.
Hollande, who said on the night of his election that the weight of
events in Europe forced him to keep his celebrations short, said on Monday he knew he would be judged
on how he starts his presidency.
“MR NORMAL”
Hollande was officially sworn in a president
just before 11 a.m. (5 a.m. EDT) in a ceremony after Sarkozy greeted him on the steps of the Elysee
presidential palace and took him inside to hand over the country’s nuclear codes and other secret
dossiers.
Anxious not to lose the “Mr Normal” image that appealed to voters tired of his showman
predecessor, Hollande had asked for the inauguration ceremony to be kept as low-key as
possible.
He invited just three dozen or so personal guests to join some 350 officials at the
event and neither his nor his partner Valerie Trierweiler’s children attended his
swearing-in.
Still, the man who until recently chugged to work on a scooter was presented with
the official chain of office, a gold collar weighing nearly a kilogram engraved with his name and the
six previous presidents of the Fifth Republic.
He also had a Legion of Honour medal pinned on
his lapel.
He was later be taken on a traditional victory drive down the Champs Elysees avenue
in an open-topped car.
Hollande is set to name civil servant Pierre-Rene Lemas as his chief of
staff later in the day. Germanophile Jean-Marc Ayrault, who has strong contacts in Berlin, could be
named prime minister sometime after that.
Before that, Hollande will eat his first lunch as
president with Socialist former prime ministers Pierre Mauroy, Laurent Fabius, Michel Rocard, Edith
Cresson and Lionel Jospin.
Hollande will travel to the United States on Thursday for G8 and NATO
summits after holding his first cabinet meeting.
