Loire (French pronunciation: [lwaʁ]; Arpitan: Lêre; Occitan: Léger) is an administrative department in the east-central part of France occupying the River Loire's upper reaches.

Loire was created in 1793 when after just 3½ years the young Rhône-et-Loire department was split into two. This was a response to counter-Revolutionary activities in Lyon which, by population, was the country's second largest city. By splitting Rhône-et-Loire the government sought to protect the French Revolution from the potential power and influence of counter revolutionary activity in the Lyon region.

The departmental capitals have been / are as follows:

Loire is part of the current administrative region of Rhône-Alpes and is surrounded by the departments of Rhône, Isère, Ardèche, Haute-Loire, Puy-de-Dôme, Allier, and Saône-et-Loire.

The River Loire traverses the department from south to north.

The Loire department is split into three arrondissements:

Parts of the department belong to Parc naturel régional Livradois-Forez.

Nicolas Sarkozy (pronounced [ni.kɔ.la saʁ.kɔ.zi] ( listen), born Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa; 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as the 23rd President of the French Republic from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012.

Before his presidency, he was leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Under Jacques Chirac's presidency he served as Minister of the Interior in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's (UMP) first two governments (from May 2002 to March 2004), then was appointed Minister of Finances in Raffarin's last government (March 2004 to May 2005) and again Minister of the Interior in Dominique de Villepin's government (2005–2007).

Sarkozy was also president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine department from 2004 to 2007 and mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of France from 1983 to 2002. He was Minister of the Budget in the government of Édouard Balladur (RPR, predecessor of the UMP) during François Mitterrand's last term.

In foreign affairs, he promised a strengthening of the entente cordiale with the United Kingdom and closer cooperation with the United States. During his term, he faced the late-2000s financial crisis (followed by the recession and the debt crisis caused by it) and the Arab Spring (especially in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria). He also married Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.