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French President Francois Hollande waves from his car as he drives down the Champs Elysees in Paris after his inauguration on May 15, 2012.

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French President-elect Francois Hollande arrives for his inauguration on May, 15, 2012 at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

Reuters reports — Francois Hollande became French president on Tuesday in an official handover ceremony that makes him the country's first Socialist leader since Francois Mitterrand.

Outgoing President Nicolas Sarkozy greeted Hollande on the steps of the Elysee presidential palace, and took him inside to transfer nuclear codes and other secret files ahead of a short swearing-in ceremony attended by around 400 guests.

Hollande was due to fly to Berlin later in the day for his first meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

'Monsieur Normal' takes office ... unmarried

French economy stalls, posing challenge for new president

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Hollande is awarded "Grand Maitre" in the Order of the Legion of Honor, from chancellor of France's National Order of the Legion of Honor, General Jean-Louis Georgelin.

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Hollande, right, walks on the red carpet towards his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy prior to the start of the investiture ceremony.

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Sarkozy, left, welcomes his successor Hollande upon his arrival at the Elysee Palace.

Jacques Brinon / AP

Hollande's partner Valerie Trierweiler, right, shakes hands with Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy before the presidential handover ceremony.

Jacky Naegelen / Reuters

Journalists work as a man sweeps the red carpet in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace.

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Sarkozy and his wife leave the Elysee Palace after the formal investiture ceremony.

Reuters

Hollande stands up in his car as he rides in the rain up the Champs Elysees.

Lionel Bonaventure / AP

Outgoing French president Nicolas Sarkozy, left, walks with president-elect Francois Hollande at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on May 8, 2012, during a ceremony marking the end of World War II in Europe.

Reuters reports — Outgoing French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged his divided conservative UMP party on Monday to pull together quickly after his election defeat to fight off a double challenge from the left and far-right in parliamentary polls next month.

Sarkozy, who lost Sunday's presidential election to Socialist François Hollande, told senior UMP members to "play hard" and warned against splitting into factions that would weaken the party's standing in parliament.

France's flashy, fiery Sarkozy is ousted by unassuming Socialist

Sarkozy, who is due to hand over power to Hollande on May 15, said he would not campaign for the legislative elections to held in two rounds on June 10 and 17, preferring to take a break with his family.

But he seemed to back away from his promise to withdraw from politics if he lost the presidency, telling his allies that he would "still be around" and that they could "count on him". Read the full story.

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In his first official function since defeating Sarkozy in Sunday's election, Hollande took part in ceremonies to mark the anniversary at the Arc de Triomphe along with the outgoing president.

Michel Euler / AP

Outgoing French President Nicolas Sarkozy leaves after addressing supporters at his Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party headquarters after the the preliminary results of the second round of the presidential elections were announced in Paris, France, May 6.

Christophe Karaba / EPA

Supporters of 'Union pour un Mouvement Populaire' (UMP) party candidate Nicolas Sarkozy react after learning their candidate lost the Presidential election in Paris.

Sarkozy faced voters' anger over austerity Sunday in a presidential run-off expected to replace him with Socialist rival Francois Hollande, with far-reaching consequences for efforts to fight Europe's debt crisis.

The election outcome could also have an impact on how long French troops stay in Afghanistan and how France exercises its military and diplomatic muscle around the world.

-- Reported by the Associated Press

Read the full story.

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Laurent Cipriani / AP

A supporter of Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande celebrates after the results of the first round of the French elections were announced at the party's headquarters in Paris, France, on April 22, 2012.

Reuters reports — Far-rightist Marine Le Pen threw France's presidential race wide open on Sunday by scoring nearly 20 percent in the first round -- votes that might determine the runoff between Socialist favorite Francois Hollande and conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Hollande got 27.5 percent, compared to Sarkozy's 26.6 percent, and the two will meet in a head-to-head decider on May 6.

A 4-month presidential race? Welcome to France

But Le Pen's record score of 20 percent was the sensation of the night, beating her father's 2002 result and outpolling hard leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon, in fourth place with 10 percent. Centrist Francois Bayrou finished fifth with nine percent. Continue reading.

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Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande adjusts his glasses on stage after the announcement of the estimated results of the first round put him in first place.

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France's President and Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) candidate Nicolas Sarkozy is pictured following the announcement of the estimated results, which put him in second place.

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Far right Front National (FN) candidate Marine Le Pen celebrates after a strong performance gave her the highest ever score for her anti-immigrant party. She finished third.

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Ballots are displayed on a table in a polling station in Lyon during first round voting.

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Jean-paul Pelissier / Reuters

A masked special unit policeman looks out of one of the ground floor windows of the apartment where gunman Mohamed Merah had been holed up, in Toulouse, France on March 23, 2012. Merah died in a hail of bullets on Thursday as he scrambled out of a ground-floor window during a gunbattle with elite police commandos.

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France's incumbent President and UMP candidate for the 2012 presidential election Nicolas Sarkozy delivers a speech in Strasbourg on March 22, 2012.

As police investigators continue to search the apartment in Toulouse where a 30-hour siege ended in a cacophony of gunfire on Thursday, attention is turning to the effect events of the past two weeks will have on French politics.

France's presidential election race has resumed irrevocably altered by the killing of Mohamed Merah, an al Qaeda-inspired gunman whose murders have shifted the political debate in favor of incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. 

• Graphic video may help answer whether Mohamed Merah worked alone

The young self-styled Islamist's crimes spread fear, triggered an emotive debate about immigration and integration, and gave Sarkozy a small bounce in the polls as he sought to close the gap behind Socialist rival Francois Hollande.

With only one month left to go before the first round of the election, Merah's influence is likely to endure.

• Sarkozy announces crackdown on Internet hate sites

"Of course what has happened in the past week has changed the course of events," a senior Sarkozy campaign adviser said on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"There wasn't much talk about security and terrorism before. But this is going to raise questions about our system of integration, our approach to fundamentalism and our tolerance of certain practices here. You're going to hear a lot about that in the weeks to come," he said. Continue reading.

-- Reuters contributed to this post

• See more photos related to the shootings in Toulouse

Philippe Wojazer / Reuters

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy is surrounded by bodyguards as he walks to a news conference at the European Union summit in Brussels, Belgium, on the morning of Dec. 9, 2011.

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Journalists wait for news from the meeting of European heads of state in Brussels early in the morning on Friday.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for the resumption of talks on Friday morning.

It was a long night for everybody at the European Union summit in Brussels. As we report today, the 27 EU presidents and prime ministers began their talks at 7:30 Thursday evening and continued past 4:30 a.m.

The leaders then emerged to face the cameras, each aiming to spin the outcome in a way that would best please his or her domestic audience. After that, perhaps, a chance to sleep. But not for long -- the talks were due to resume at 9.30 a.m on Friday.

The politicians were not the only ones to pull an all-nighter. As The Economist's Charlemagne columnist writes, "We journalists are probably too bleary-eyed after a sleepless night to understand the full significance of what has just happened." 

The writer is too modest: the Charlemagne article is a good place to start if you would like to know more about the long-term implications of the summit.

Related content: Enjoy looking at pictures of politicians making nice? Indulge yourself with more photos of diplomacy at work on PhotoBlog.

Yves Herman / Reuters

British Prime Minister David Cameron looks at German Chancellor Angela Merkel after summit talks resumed on Friday.