French president Sarkozy joins Twitter

French president Nicholas Sarkozy has become the latest world leader to join Twitter.

Since joining, his official account gained 13 000 plus followers, despite only sending out two tweets.

“Good day to you all, I’m very happy today to launch my Twitter account. Thank you to all of those who would like to follow me,” he said, in his first message.

Bonjour à tous, je suis très heureux de lancer aujourd’hui mon compte #Twitter. Merci à ceux qui voudront bien me suivre! – NS

— Nicolas Sarkozy (@NicolasSarkozy) February 15, 2012

In the second he said, “I have accepted TF1’s invitation to appear on the 8pm [20:00] news tonight and I invite you all to join me,”

J’ai accepté l’invitation de TF1 au journal de 20h de ce soir et je vous y donne rendez-vous – NS

— Nicolas Sarkozy (@NicolasSarkozy) February 15, 2012

The latter reportedly referred to Sarkozy’s appearance on France’s main network, on which he was set to launch his campaign for a second term as French president.

The first round of French voting is set to kick off on 22 April, and is set to be contested by around a dozen candidates. From there, the two best-placed candidates will compete in a run-off election in early May.

While Sarkozy has been racking up followers, the only account he follows is that of Palais Elyysee, his own official residence and meeting place of the French cabinet.

He is also some distance behind his most likely challenger Francois Hollande of the Socialist Party.

Hollande tweets regularly and has just under 150 000 followers.

When it comes to Facebook, however, Sarkozy is the clear winner with just shy of 530 000 Fans, compared to Hollande’s 52 390.