page_title: Nicolas Sarkozy
section_title: Presidential election: 2007
hierarchical_section_title: Nicolas Sarkozy / Early political career / Presidential election: 2007
caption_attribution_description: English: Ségolène Royal at a meeting held on Feb. 6, 2007 by the French Socialist Party at the Carpentier Hall in Paris. Français&#160;: Ségolène Royal à une réunion publique organisée par le Parti socialiste français le 6 février 2007, Halle Carpentier à Paris.
context_page_description: Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa is a retired French politician who served as President of France and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012.
  Born in Paris, he is of 1/2 Hungarian Protestant, 1/4 Greek Jewish, and 1/4 French Catholic origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine from 1983 to 2002, he was Minister of the Budget under Prime Minister Édouard Balladur during François Mitterrand's second term. During Jacques Chirac's second presidential term he served as Minister of the Interior and as Minister of Finances. He was the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement party from 2004 to 2007.
  He won the 2007 French presidential election by a 53.1% to 46.9% margin to Socialist Ségolène Royal. During his term, he faced the late-2000s financial crisis, the Russo-Georgian War and the Arab Spring. He initiated the reform of French universities and the pension reform. He married Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni in 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
  In the 2012 election, François Hollande, candidate of the Socialist Party, defeated Sarkozy by a 3.2% margin.
context_section_description: Sarkozy was a likely candidate for the presidency in 2007; in an oft-repeated comment made on television channel France 2, when asked by a journalist whether he thought about the presidential election when he shaved in the morning, Sarkozy commented, "Not just when I shave".
  On 14 January 2007, Sarkozy was chosen by the UMP to be its candidate in the 2007 presidential election. Sarkozy, who was running unopposed, won 98 percent of the votes. Of the 327,000 UMP members who could vote, 69 percent participated in the online ballot.
  In February 2007, Sarkozy appeared on a televised debate on TF1 where he expressed his support for affirmative action and the freedom to work overtime. Despite his opposition to same-sex marriage, he advocated civil unions and the possibility for same-sex partners to inherit under the same regime as married couples. The law was voted in July 2007.
  On 7 February, Sarkozy decided in favour of a projected second, non-nuclear, aircraft carrier for the national Navy (adding to the nuclear Charles de Gaulle), during an official visit in Toulon with Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie. "This would allow permanently having an operational ship, taking into account the constraints of maintenance", he explained.
  On 21 March, President Jacques Chirac announced his support for Sarkozy. Chirac pointed out that Sarkozy had been chosen as presidential candidate for the ruling UMP party, and said: "So it is totally natural that I give him my vote and my support." To focus on his campaign, Sarkozy stepped down as interior minister on 26 March.
  During the campaign, rival candidates had accused Sarkozy of being a "candidate for brutality" and of presenting hard-line views about France's future. Opponents also accused him of courting conservative voters in policy-making in a bid to capitalise on right-wing sentiments among some communities. However, his popularity was sufficient to see him polling as the frontrunner throughout the later campaign period, consistently ahead of rival Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal.
  The first round of the presidential election was held on 22 April 2007. Sarkozy came in first with 31.18 percent of the votes, ahead of Ségolène Royal of the Socialists with 25.87 percent. In the second round, Sarkozy came out on top to win the election with 53.06 percent of the votes ahead of Ségolène Royal with 46.94 percent. In his speech immediately following the announcement of the election results, Sarkozy stressed the need for France's modernisation, but also called for national unity, mentioning that Royal was in his thoughts. In that speech, he claimed "The French have chosen to break with the ideas, habits and behaviour of the past. I will restore the value of work, authority, merit and respect for the nation."
caption: Ségolène Royal was Sarkozy's final opponent during the 2007 campaign.
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