PARIS - Nicolas Sarkozy took office as France's president on Wednesday, waving farewell to outgoing leader Jacques Chirac and promising to move quickly and boldly to equip the nation for a new era.

Outgoing French President Jacques Chirac, left, welcomes his successor Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace, Wednesday May 16, 2007 in Paris. Sarkozy officially takes office Wednesday as France's new president, replacing Chirac in an elaborate ceremony at the Elysee Palace. [AP]

Chirac, ending 12 years in power, transferred the nuclear codes to President Sarkozy in a private meeting that was a high point of the transfer of power.

A 21-gun salute signaled the change in leadership after the 74-year-old Chirac took leave with a handshake at the entrance of the ornate Elysee Palace and walked alone to a waiting car. Sarkozy, with a clenched jaw, returned the wave before turning to enter his new home for the next five years.

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

In his first speech as president, a determined Sarkozy noted that he was elected with a mandate for change that he was honor-bound to fulfill.

"The people conferred a mandate on me .... I will scrupulously fulfill it," he said, adding that further delays "will be fatal."

Chirac handed over the helm of the world's sixth-largest economy after two terms marked by lackluster reforms and tensions in rundown, immigrant-packed housing projects far from the glory of the Elysee Palace.

Issues demanding attention include a jobless rate of more than 8 percent and the identity and cohesion of an old nation in a quickly changing world.

"Never has immobilism been so dangerous for France," Sarkozy said, promising to rehabilitate the values of "work, effort, merit" and "invent new solutions."

Sarkozy said that issues of security, order, authority and results were priorities of his administration.