French presidential inauguration

However, over the years, various traditions have emerged, such that the inauguration is not merely a simple transfer of power but an entire day of parades, speeches, military and civil tributes, and general celebrations.

The "inauguration" includes not only the transfer of power between the president-elect and the outgoing president, but also of a variety of ceremonial devices, both civil and military.

Under the Third and Fourth republics, the president-elect was inaugurated immediately on the day of their election by both houses of the Parliament, the ceremony taking place in the Marengo room (adjacent to the office of the president of Congress) of the Palace of Versailles.

The two then share a conversation in one of the rooms of the Élysée, effectuating the handover, including the communication access codes of the French nuclear arsenal, which constitute an exclusive prerogative of the President.

The new head of state then accompanies the outgoing president to the courtyard where they leave the Élysée for good, honoured by a salute from the Republican Guard.

The president-elect then returns for the inauguration ceremony itself (which has always been held at the ballroom of the Élysée Palace under the Fifth Republic; it used to be held in the Salon des Ambassadeurs), accompanied by the Prime Minister and the presidents of both chambers of the French Parliament, while the chamber orchestra of the Republican Guard plays a solemn march chosen by the newly elected president.

The actual inauguration takes place when the president of Constitutional Council announces the official results of the presidential election.

After the Talbot Lago of 1950 used by René Coty, Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou used a Citroën Traction built by Chapron in 1955.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1974 (who made part of the journey on foot), François Mitterrand in 1981 and Jacques Chirac in 1995 used a 5.6 m-long Presidential Citroën SM weighing 1.78 tonnes, commissioned in 1971 by Georges Pompidou.

The President then visits the Town Hall of Paris as part of a republican tradition, where he meets the mayor, the municipal team, and other personalities of civil society or politics.