A new Sun King tries to keep everybody happy

FRANCE: Chandeliers shimmered from the ceiling, frescoes portrayed the glory of France and 18th-century tapestries adorned the walls.

And amid the opulence of it all stood a small figure determined to live up to grandeur of the setting and to embody the might of the French presidency.

France may have guillotined Louis XVI in 1793 but, as Emmanuel Macron has patently understood, it still wants to be ruled by a monarch, albeit an elected one.

Thus it was that he entered the Elysee’s grandiose Salle des Fetes with a suitably regal gait as 300 guests - political and religious leaders, but also friends and family - fell silent and the Republican Guard orchestra played Cypres et Lauriers, written in 1919 to celebrate the Allied victory over Germany in World War I.

Macron walked stiffly around the room, before pausing beside the Great Chain of the Legion d’honneur, which is bestowed upon each new head of state but which, at 952 grams, is too cumbersome for any to actually wear.

The new president had gone out of his way to ensure that this would be a day to remember, and for the first time journalists had been invited into the Salle des Fetes to witness a presidential inauguration.

They were placed behind members of his family, and relatives of Brigitte Trogneux, his wife, who sat by his right hand during the speech.

Nothing was left to chance. Reporters received text messages with details about his clothes: a dark blue suit from Jonas & Cie, the Parisian tailor, which cost a mere euros 450 (NZ$715) ; a snip compared with the euros 7000 suits worn by Francois Fillon, his defeated centre-right election rival.

Trogneux, for her part, wore a lavender-blue dress designed by Nicolas Ghesquiere, the French couturier, and lent to her, along with her Louis Vuitton handbag, by LVMH, the luxury goods group.

In the 17th century the Sun King relied upon artistic creation and lavish parties as well as military force to renew the power of France.

Macron wants to do much the same in the 21st, and the music he chose said much about his ambitions.there was the Apotheosis by Hector Berlioz, the Infernal Galop by Jacques Offenbach - better known as the French can-can Brahms’s Hungarian Dances and the Champagne Aria from Mozart’s Don Giovianni.

In short, Macron was telling the world France would return under his presidency as a cultural hub as well as an economic powerhouse.

- The Times