Center-right French politician Nicolas Sarkozy took office as president of France on Wednesday, replacing his former mentor, Jacques Chirac. Sarkozy and Chirac met privately on Tuesday before Sarkozy attended official ceremonies in Paris on Wednesday. According to one bbc correspondent, information exchanged between the two included France’s nuclear launch codes, among other things.

Sarkozy won the French presidency in a runoff election on Sunday by a fair margin. Today, Sarkozy is to announce his cabinet positions and his prime minister, expected to be four-time minister Francois Fillon. Several senior Socialists who campaigned against Sarkozy are also expected to be given posts. France may have its new government by tomorrow, with possibly half of the newly appointed ministers being women.

Sarkozy has made it clear that his first priority as president is to drive further European integration.

“Opposition to change has never been more dangerous for France in this world where … everyone is pushing to change faster than the others, where any delay could be fatal,” Sarkozy said in his inaugural address. Continually reinforcing the need to change, he said France needed to lose its “fear of the future.” “France needs to take risks and needs to take initiative,” he added.

Immediately after his inauguration, Sarkozy flew to Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Stating the need to rescue the EU from its “paralysis,” Sarkozy said that an agreement between France and Germany over aeronautical giant eads was a matter of “urgency” and that “not a minute should be wasted.”

The new president has been in favor of a scaled-down version of the European Constitution and adopting such a version through back-door methods. During the election campaign, he stated that he would like to see a parliamentary vote rather than a nationwide referendum on any new changes to the defunct European Constitution. If such a vote were to proceed, the likelihood of France adopting a reformed European Constitution would become much higher than by national referendum alone. The French public previously rejected the European Constitution in May 2005.

Despite France’s rejection of the European Union constitution, during his acceptance speech Sarkozy stated he would bring France back to Europe. He stated that “all my life I have been a European,” adding that “tonight France is back in Europe.”

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso is quite pleased with the election of pro-Europe Sarkozy. He telephoned Sarkozy to congratulate him on his victory. In an issued statement, Barroso said, “I know Nicolas Sarkozy well, and I know his desire to ensure that France occupies the position that it ought to on the European scene. … And I have every confidence that Nicolas Sarkozy … will play a driving role in the resolution of the institutional question and the consolidation of European politics.”

Indeed, watch for Sarkozy to bring France back to Europe—but not with the amount of leadership it once had.

Despite the new president’s attempt to improve his reputation, many of the French left remain opposed to his election. Approximately 1,500 protesters marched through eastern Paris on Wednesday, a sign of France’s continued political instability. Many protests over the past week since the election on Sunday have broken out into violence, as protesters burned thousands of cars, resulting in the arrest of hundreds of young demonstrators.

As France continues to vacillate under its politically divided government, the historically present Franco-German leadership of the EU will become more and more one-sided. With the decrease in France’s stability, rising Germany will be quick to take over the reins of the rapidly advancing European Union.