10 quirky presidential facts
At 39, Emmanuel Macron is France's youngest-ever head of state - but here are 10 facts about the office he is about to enter that you may not know
The President of France automatically becomes Co-Prince of Andorra, and therefore the only elected monarch in the world. Until 2000, French presidents were elected for a seven year-term. This has now been reduced to five years, and no president can serve more than two consecutive terms.Diplomacy is a presidential responsibility. French presidents negotiate treaties, receive diplomats and direct French diplomatic relations. The President has the final say on the appointment of the head of the French Diplomatic Service. All aspects of defence are directly under the control of the President, who has the nuclear codes, is Head of the Armed Forces, has the final say on the appointment of the Defence Minister, and has the authority to order military action.The Palais de l'Elysée, now the President's official residence, was home to Louis XV's influential mistress, Madame de Pompadour, from 1753 until her death in 1764. "Grâce présidentielle" is the President's power to commute or cancel either wholly or partly a criminal sentence imposed by the courts. President François Hollande did this in the case of Jacqueline Sauvage, who was found guilty of murdering her abusive husband, and served four years of a 10-year sentence. She received a "grâce totale" on December 28, 2016.A Parking Amnesty, under which all outstanding parking fines were cancelled just after a presidential election fell into disuse when President Nicolas Sarkozy refused to grant it on the grounds that it encouraged undisciplined parking, President Hollande took a similar line and President Macron is likely to follow suit. But he still has the power to announce an amnesty, if he so wishes.Le Fort de Brégançon, on a massive rocky outcrop in the Mediterranean just off the coast between Marseille, was opened to the public in 2014, but remains the President's official summer retreat. President Hollande only visited the fort once, in 2012, when his companion Valérie Trierweiler caused a scandal by ordering 14 cushions for the Fort at a cost to the public purse of €200 each.The president is paid €14,810.13 per month (€12,696 net) and as well as living at the Palais de l'Elysée and having the use of a fleet of official cars (all French makes) and planes to use, also has free run of the SNCF network. (President Hollande took the train on his ill-fated trip to Le Fort de Brégançon to demonstrate his credentials as an 'ordinary president', hence the outcry about the cushions.) Despite France's strict separation of State and Church, the French president is automatically also the "first and only honorary canon" of the Saint John Lateran Basilica, the Cathedral Church of Rome.
