Jacques Chirac bade an emotional farewell to the French people last night, proclaiming his love for “this great . . . this magnificent nation” and pride at accomplishing his mission. “I hand over to Nicolas Sarkozy with pride in a completed duty and great confidence in the future of our country,” said the President, who today closes 12 years in office and hands over to his former subordinate.

“It has been a very great honour to serve you,” he said, talking of the “strength of the link-which has bound me to every one of you”. Mr Chirac said that he had every confidence in Mr Sarkozy, but he appeared to take an indirect swipe at his successor’s divisive style by emphasising the need for the country to “remain united” despite differences between people.

The 74-year-old Gaullist will become the first French leader since 1969 to hand over to a successor from his own party when Mr Sarkozy is driven into the Elysée Palace for a 90-minute ceremony this morning.

After Mr Sarkozy, 52, reviews the guard and receives the codes to the French nuclear arsenal, the pair, who have been at odds for the past decade, will confer without aides or civil servants for 30 minutes. A 21-gun salute and a drive by Mr Sarkozy down the Champs Elysées will complete the fourth handover since the modern French republic was created in 1958.

Reviews of the Chirac years have been mixed, with commentators praising the President for statesmanship and his vigorous embodiment of the nation but deploring his failure to tackle economic and social ills. His chief achievements included opposing the Iraq war, reconciling France with its collaboration in the Holocaust and a campaign that has halved road deaths. Jacques Marseille, Professor of Economic History at Sorbonne University, joked that he was grateful to Mr Chirac. “He has enabled us to deal in history books with the 1995-2007 period very quickly: there will be nothing to say.”

Mr Sarkozy wants to appoint centrists and a leftwinger in the largely right-wing team to show “inclusive” government. The beleaguered Socialist Opposition is denouncing the move as a ploy to destroy it, and some of Mr Sarkozy’s loyalists are upset at being denied places in the slimmed-down 15-member Cabinet.

The chief leftwing recruit is expected to be Bernard Kouchner, 67, a former Health and Education Minister in Socialist governments as well as a respected international human-rights activist. Mr Kouchner, who supported the war in Iraq, was reported to have accepted the post of Foreign Minister.

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