PARIS — President Chirac yesterday gave his official blessing to the center-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy to succeed him as president of France.

In a televised statement, Mr. Chirac said he would give his “vote and support” to the 52-year-old Mr. Sarkozy, who is the interior minister as well as the head of the governing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) — the party created by Mr. Chirac.

The outgoing president also said Mr. Sarkozy would leave his government post on March 26 to focus full-time on the election, which is to be held over two rounds in April and May.

But after months of stalling over giving his blessing, the president’s support for Mr. Sarkozy was measured. The two men have been bitter rivals for years and disagree on many domestic issues.

Mr. Chirac said: “As for my personal choices, things are simple. I wanted to create the UMP to allow France to conduct enduring rigorous politics of modernization.

“In its diversity, this political grouping chose to support the candidacy of Nicolas Sarkozy for the presidential election, and this is due to his qualities. It is thus completely natural that I give him my vote and my support.”

The two had a tête-à-tête yesterday morning before a Cabinet meeting. Afterward, Mr. Sarkozy said: “I am very touched by this decision. It is important to me on a political level, but also on a personal level.”

Mr. Chirac’s support could help Mr. Sarkozy win back center-right voters worried by the UMP candidate’s more liberal tendencies and tempted by a rising centrist candidate, Francois Bayrou.

However, it puts into question his pledge to make a “rupture” with the Chirac style of politics — a point that his electoral opponents will definitely seek to exploit.

Segolene Royal, the Socialist Party candidate, said Mr. Chirac’s announcement was proof that “Nicolas Sarkozy is the outgoing candidate of the outgoing majority. [His candidacy] is the continuation of the politics of the right.”

The Socialist Party has also accused Mr. Sarkozy of using the Interior Ministry to spy on rival candidates and their campaign teams. He, in turn, has dismissed the allegations, saying only that he would step down before the start of the campaign on April 9.

Mr. Chirac had kept up the suspense over whom he would back, declining to give an opinion 10 days ago, when he announced that he would not run for a third term. In a sign that he intends to continue influencing the electoral debate, he has cautioned candidates against overtly liberal policies or attacking the French social model, which Mr. Sarkozy recently described as “defunct.”

In the preface to his forthcoming memoirs, leaked to Le Monde yesterday, Mr. Chirac also attacks Mr. Sarkozy’s plan to introduce affirmative action as “pernicious” and reiterates his call for Turkish entry into the European Union — which Mr. Sarkozy opposes.

Mr. Sarkozy recently confessed that the two men did not see eye-to-eye on everything. He pointedly added: “I want to be a candidate that clearly tells the French what he will do if they trust me. That’s my specificity. So I am different” from Mr. Chirac.