President Nicolas Sarkozy announces his candidacy on Wednesday for France's 2012 April-May presidential election.

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Following are the main milestones of Sarkozy's first term:

May 2007 - Sarkozy, a conservative former interior minister, is elected president on a platform of "work more to earn more," vowing to break with past inertia and restore full employment.

He raises eyebrows by celebrating his victory with wealthy supporters at a flashy Champs-Elysees restaurant and soon earns monikers like "bling-bling" and "Tsarkozy".

June 2007 - Sarkozy's dynamism earns him the highest popularity ratings of any leader since Charles de Gaulle. Glossy magazines liken him and his wife Cecilia to the Kennedys.

July 2007 - Sarkozy intervenes to free five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in Libya for allegedly infecting children with HIV. Some accuse him of murky dealings with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, with whom he later signs a missile deal.

July 2007 - Sarkozy tells an audience in Senegal that Africans have neither left a mark in history nor embraced the future, drawing criticism for colonialist-sounding overtones.

August 2007 - Sarkozy meets U.S. President George W. Bush and moves to mend Franco-American ties. Cecilia does not join him.

October 2007 - Sarkozy and Cecilia, his second wife, divorce after 11 years of marriage. Within weeks, he meets Italian-born singer and former supermodel Carla Bruni at a dinner party.

December 2007 - Gaddafi visits Paris for the first time in 34 years and pitches his tent by the presidential palace.

Sarkozy visits the Pope, and is spotted checking his BlackBerry. He creates a media frenzy by whisking Bruni to Disneyland Paris, Egypt and Jordan surrounded by photographers.

January 2008 - Sarkozy tells the media his liaison with Bruni is serious and the pair marry in February in a low-key ceremony.

February 2008 - TV cameras catch him saying "Get lost, jerk" to a man at an agricultural fair who refuses to shake his hand.

July 2008 - Sarkozy makes a much-lauded debut at the European Parliament as France takes over the EU presidency.

He launches an ill-fated Mediterranean Union at a Paris summit, showcasing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad alongside the Egyptian and Tunisian leaders later toppled in 2011 democratic revolutions.

August 2008 - He brokers a ceasefire that ends a brief war between Russia and Georgia.

September 2008 - As the collapse of Lehman Bros sends shivers around the world, Sarkozy rails in a key speech in Toulon against the capitalist system and vows to protect France.

October 2008 - He summons European leaders to Paris to work on a coordinated response to the financial crisis. France loosens the 35-hour work week, letting firms fix working hour deals with staff and building on earlier measures to cut taxes on overtime.

December 2008 - Sarkozy unveils an economic stimulus package valued at 26 billion euros, equivalent to 1.3 percent of GDP.

February 2009 - Sarkozy's attempt to link aid for the car industry to preserving jobs in France offends EU neighbors.

March 2009 - Sarkozy announces that France will return to NATO's integrated military command, pleasing Washington.

June 2009 - Sarkozy announces a plan to ban full-face Islamic veils in secular France, saying they repress women.

October 2009 - Sarkozy backs his 23-year-old son Jean's candidacy to head a public agency that runs Paris' financial district, provoking cries of nepotism. Jean later drops his bid.

March 2010 - Sarkozy rejigs his cabinet after his centre-right bloc suffers a crushing defeat in regional elections. His approval ratings have now slid to below 30 percent.

June 2010 - He unveils a plan to raise the retirement age to 62 from 60. Hundreds of thousands join street protests.

July 2010 - Riots erupt in the city of Grenoble over the shooting of a man fleeing police. Sarkozy declares "war" on urban violence and orders the dismantling of 300 illegal Roma camps, a move seen as pandering to far-right voters.

Sarkozy denies that his party received illegal campaign donations from billionaire L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, as a family feud blows into a public scandal.

September-October 2010 - Millions join protests and strikes over the pension reform, disrupting ports, airlines, railways and refineries. Sarkozy sticks to his guns. The bill becomes law and the protests fizzle.

November 2010 - France takes over the rotating G20 presidency, and the G8 in January, putting Sarkozy in the limelight. He calls for reform of the international monetary system but makes little progress as the euro zone crisis overshadows his agenda.

February 2011 - Sarkozy is embarrassed when it emerges that his foreign minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, vacationed in Tunisia as protesters were being killed. The minister resigns.

March 2011 - Sarkozy spearheads foreign intervention in the Libyan crisis. French warplanes are first to go into action in a U.N.-mandated NATO operation to protect civilians from Gaddafi.

April 2011 - Sarkozy deploys military helicopters in a U.N. mission to help forces loyal to elected Ivory Coast President Alessane Ouattara oust incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, who had refused to step down. French troops aid Gbagbo's arrest.

July 2011 - Sarkozy takes centre stage, next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in working to resolve the euro zone debt crisis. In August, Sarkozy orders ministers to find new deficit cuts as French banks bear the brunt of a market rout.

October 2011 - Bruni gives birth to a baby girl, Giulia, following a pregnancy largely shrouded from public view. Sarkozy misses the birth due to emergency euro zone talks in Frankfurt.

November 2011 - France announces 65 billion euros of spending cuts and tax hikes over five years as Sarkozy battles to save Paris' AAA credit rating. Unemployment is at an 11-year high.

December 2011 - Sarkozy and Merkel propose a euro zone "fiscal compact" to enforce budget discipline across the 17-nation bloc.

January 2012 - Standard & Poor's cuts France's triple-A rating. Sarkozy shrugs off the move and switches his focus to growth, promising a flurry of measures to bolster competitiveness.