RACHIDA DATI, MINISTER OF JUSTICE
Rachida Dati was a Judge before she became Nicolas Sarkozy's close advisor and chief spokesman.
Posted on 05/18/2007 1:46:09 AM PDT by Cincinna
PARIS, May 18, 2007 (AFP) - New French Prime Minister Francois Fillon on Friday unveiled a 15 minister cabinet team that includes seven women and maverick Socialist Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister.
The line-up was unveiled a day after right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy, who took power this week promising radical reform to lift France out of its social and economic malaise, named Fillon as prime minister.
Many of the ministers served under Sarkozy's predecessor Jacques Chirac. But there are many startling appointments, including the heavy female presence and the first minister of North African origin, that highlight Sarkozy's declared aim of making a clean break with France's political past.
The appointment of Kouchner, a 67-year-old doctor-turned-politician who backed Sarkozy's Socialist rival Segolene Royal in the election campaign, has created bitter recrimination in left-wing ranks.
Kouchner, founder of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity, is a former UN High Representative in Kosovo and one of the country's most popular politicians. He served in successive Socialist governments from 1988.
Fillon's team includes former prime minister Alain Juppe as number two in the government at the helm of a new super-ministry for environment, sustainable development and energy.
Juppe had to leave politics for several years after becoming the highest profile figure to be punished in a party finance scandal.
Ex-defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie got the interior ministry and former employment minister Jean-Louis Borloo became minister for the economy, finance and employment, spearheading the drive for economic reform.
Another high-profile appointment is Sarkozy's election campaign spokeswoman Rachida Dati at the justice ministry. Not only is she one of the pioneer women in the government, she also becomes the first politician of North African origin to hold a top French government post.
Herve Morin, who was parliamentary leader of Francois Bayrou's centrist UDF party, was named defence minister.
With the appointnment of seven women ministers, France has now joined Chile, Finland, Spain and Sweden as a country that has sought to end male domination of politics by embracing gender parity in government.
Fillon will lead Sarkozy's UMP party into parliamentary elections in June hoping for the majority needed to push through the reforms in the eurozone's second biggest economy.
Most opinion polls say the UMP will easily win that majority.
Fillon made his mark as a reformer as social affairs minister under Chirac, from 2002 to 2004, when he overhauled France's pension system, facing down million-strong street protests.
His friendship with Sarkozy dates back to the 1990s but he threw all of his energy into building up the Sarkozy electoral machine after losing his government post in a reshuffle in 2005.
Fillon, who has a British wife, was appointed and started work one day after the 52-year-old Sarkozy took over as head of state. The 53-year-old, who masterminded Sarkozy's election programme, is seen as a safe pair of hands whose experience handling unions during pensions reform will be a key asset to the new government.
His low-key demeanour is often described as complementary to Sarkozy's hyper-active side. But like Sarkozy, Fillon embraces a can-do attitude to politics, rejecting the view that France is unreformable.
“Mr Kouchner’s pro-American line should fit in well with Mr Sarkozy’s thinking, the BBC’s Caroline Wyatt reports. He was one of the few French politicians to support the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, on the grounds that it would topple Saddam Hussein.”
Bernard Kouchner is one of the most admired and respected political personalities in France.
A brilliant move on the part of Sarko. By placing the pro-American Kouchner in a high post, Sarko has sent a strong message of his Foreign Policy, as well as further crippled the already crumbling Left in advance of the Legislative Elections in June.
Why has Kouckner’s appointment created “bitter recriminations”?
Kouchner has put the Socialists in a terrible position, even worse than before.
By agreeing to serve in the “enemy” Sarkozy government, the Socialists are calling him a traitor.
Rachida Dati was a Judge before she became Nicolas Sarkozy's close advisor and chief spokesman.
looks like sarko has his own condi
in some respects, the french have a more conservative government than bush
Yeah - the French are waiting for those tax cuts, pro-life justices, and deployment in the War on Terror.
i haven’t heard, but apparently sh-amnesty is not on the french agenda yet
apparently they think france is a sovereign country - imagine!
LOL
I only hope that Sarkozy isn’t keeping Chirac cabinet members that will turn on him like many of those that President Bush kept from the Clinton Administration.
The pro-America lefty part is what’s baffing; sounds like an oxymoron.
A similar thought crossed my mind. Hopefully Sarkozy has a Realpolitikal backbone behind his bipartisanship, instead of just letting “bipartisanship” mean, that conservatives take it in the shorts from the Left, despite the fact that the political Right held nominal power.
Sarko campaigned on deporting the sans papiers or undocumented.
“right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy”
Hey, that’s an improvement.
The appointment of Kouchner, a 67-year-old doctor-turned-politician who backed Sarkozy's Socialist rival Segolene Royal in the election campaign, has created bitter recrimination in left-wing ranks. Kouchner, founder of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity, is a former UN High Representative in Kosovo and one of the country's most popular politicians....and intercourse the left-wing cranks, er, ranks.
He is doing what he said he would do.
He picked Kouchner and Besson because they agree with his policies, and the Socialist Party doesn’t.
After Kouchner refused to condemn the taking out of Saddam and the liberation of the Iraqi people, he was a dead man in the PS. They didn’t dare throw him out because of his enormous popularity and respoect, but he had no future there.
Sarko knows you can’t win ot govern just preaching to the Choir. He is the President of all the French now.
LOL. It is a great step forward for France.
This in from Boz at French Election 2007:
This morning Sarkozy announced his new 15 person government, half the number of before. As if to make a point of not wasting time, there first meeting will be held today at 4:30 pm.
Confirming all expectations, Bernard Kouchner will be Foreign Minister, a bitter rift for the Socialist Party reeling from such a recent defeat.
Former Defense Secretary Michele Alliot-Marie, who once pondered challenging Sarkozy for the UMP presidential nomination, is going to fill Sarkozy's old post at the Interior Ministry.
Rachida Dati, the daughter of North African parents and Sarkozy's former spokeswoman, will become Justice Minister, the first time a senior post has been held by an ethnic minority. All the more interesting, the BBC reports that she "has strongly backed his ideas on affirmative action to counter racial discrimination in the jobs market," a quite un-French way of dealing with racial discrimination. Sarkozy has also scored another victory across party lines by giving the former head of the UDF in parliament, Herve Morin, the Ministry of Defense.
The Socialists have not taken the Kouchner news lying down, although they have as of yet been somewhat muted in response. Benoît Hamon, a Socialist European Deputy, told reporters at party headquarters that:
"He (Kouchner) has thus joined the government of Silvio Berlusconi (...) He is no longer a member of the Socialist Party. I have only one word, it is lamentable. Those who lent themselves (with this) made the choice to weaken the camp to which (...) they owed all."
Francois Fillon's new government assembled this afternoon for its first official meeting, but Sarkozy's "opening" to the left with the nomination of Bernard Kouchner as Foreign Minister has created nothing but bitterness in the Socialist camp. Today Socialist Party chief Francois Hollande himself came out to denounce the move:
"Bernard Kouchner, in entering the government, is no longer a member of the Socialist Party...the pseudo opening...was summarized with an individual adventure, that of Bernard Kouchner, who becomes a minister moreover in a government of the right."
Kouchner, however, appeared confident in his decision:
"If we did not have the feeling, while keeping our convictions, to serve this country, to serve our country, to serve France, we would not have done so. Nobody had forseen this, especially not me, and especially not four days ago.
"Bernard Kouchner, en entrant dans le gouvernement, n'est plus membre du parti socialiste". La procédure d'exclusion du nouveau ministre des Affaires étrangères devrait être enclenchée rapidement, même si aucune échéance n’a été précisée.
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