Sarkozy bids farewell to Cabinet

PARIS

Outgoing French leader Nicolas Sarkozy’s Cabinet met for its last session yesterday as president-elect François Hollande held talks with top Socialists to gear up for next month’s parliamentary vote.

Hollande also held consultations on forming a government and preparing for his first foreign visit, to Berlin, where he is expected to get a frosty reception over his plans to renegotiate the European fiscal austerity pact. The cabinet meeting was “emotional”, participants said, with ministers giving Sarkozy a standing ovation after he told them he wished Hollande “good luck” following his election win on May 6.

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“Nicolas Sarkozy’s main commitment in 2007, to put France on the move, has been met,” Agence France-Presse quoted Prime Minister Francois Fillon as saying after the session. “We did this with a number of reforms that no one else managed, and we did it during a climate of crisis.”

Sarkozy’s communications advisor Franck Louvrier said Sarkozy was preparing to return to his former life as a lawyer at the Paris firm he still partly owns, after taking a break with his wife Carla Bruni and their baby daughter. Hollande meanwhile met with senior party officials, where talks focused on securing the Socialists a majority in parliamentary vote on June 10 and 17.