PARIS - Nicolas Sarkozy officially takes office Wednesday as France's new president, replacing Jacques Chirac in an elaborate ceremony at the Elysee Palace.

French President Jacques Chirac, right, and President-elect Nicolas Sarkozy attend a ceremony commemorating victims of slavery in Paris, in this May 10, 2007 file photo. [AP]

The conservative Sarkozy will be "more implicated in daily affairs" than his predecessors, aide Henri Guaino said Wednesday, adding that the new president will be laying out the "philosophy of his presidency" in his inauguration speech.

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"He will communicate more, act more directly," Guaino said on Canal Plus television.

Sarkozy, 52, who won election May 6 on pledges of market reforms and a break with the past, will become the sixth president of the Fifth Republic, founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1958.

Chirac, 74, is stepping down after 12 years as president and four decades in politics. In his final presidential appeal Tuesday night, he urged his compatriots to stay united and proud, despite uncertainty about France's place in today's global economy and world affairs.

"I know that the new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will endeavor to lead our nation forward on the paths of the future," Chirac said of Sarkozy, a protege-turned-rival who has served in governments under Chirac.

Chirac on Tuesday expressed "pride in a duty fulfilled," but did not list any presidential accomplishments.

Chirac said France should be a nation of equal opportunity and an engine of European integration. 

Sarkozy is expected to appoint a fellow conservative, four-time former minister Francois Fillon, as prime minister in the coming days.

The popular Bernard Kouchner, a former Socialist health minister and founder of the Nobel-prize winning organization Doctors Without Borders, is among those being considered as new foreign minister.