President of France to. He was succeeded by Nicolas Sarkozy on 16 May 2007. Following a further change, the constitutional law on the modernisation of the institutions of the Fifth Republic, 2008, a President cannot serve more than two consecutive terms. François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac are the only Presidents to date who have served a full two terms (14 years for the former, 12 years for the latter). In order to be admitted as an official candidate, potential candidates must receive signed nominations (informally known as "parrainages", for "sponsors") from more than 500 elected officials, mostly mayors. These officials must be from
Orientalism in early modern France reasons for the development of France-Japan relations in the 19th century. During the 17th century, from being an importer, France became a net exporter of silk, for example shipping 30,000 pounds sterling worth of silk to England in 1674 alone. The Savonnerie manufactory was the most prestigious European manufactory of knotted-pile carpets, enjoying its greatest period circa 1650–1685. The manufactory had its immediate origins in a carpet manufactory established in a former soap factory (French "savon") on the Quai de Chaillot downstream of Paris in 1615 by Pierre DuPont, who was returning from the Levant and wrote "La Stromatourgie, ou