FRANCE:The secretary general of the Élysée Palace yesterday announced France's second government in as many months, the result of the right-wing UMP's modest victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections.
François Fillon remains prime minister. Minister for finance Jean-Louis Borloo was appointed to replace Alain Juppé as minister for ecology and sustainable development.
It was both a promotion and a punishment for Mr Borloo, who had dreamed of being minister for finance for the past two years.
He held the finance portfolio for one month only, but was blamed by most of the UMP for a televised gaffe on a rise in VAT which cost the party perhaps 100 seats in the National Assembly.
Mr Juppé had to resign after losing a constituency that had voted right since the second World War.
He was the last Chiraquien still in high public office.
Mr Borloo successfully fought to retain Mr Juppé's title of ministre d'état - number two in the government.
Creating the position was President Nicolas Sarkozy's way of signalling he was serious about the environment, but Mr Borloo's appointment after his disgrace shows the post carries less weight than the finance ministry.
Mr Borloo has been replaced at the finance ministry at Bercy by Christine Lagarde, who served as foreign trade minister under President Chirac and agriculture minister for the past month.
She returned to France several years ago after 20 years as a lawyer in the US, where she headed the Baker & MacKenzie law firm in Chicago, with 9,000 employees. She is considered a strong advocate of competition and globalisation.
The former EU commissioner and foreign minister Michel Barnier was appointed agriculture minister.
Mr Barnier was a scapegoat for the No vote in the constitutional treaty referendum in 2005, and was bitter not to have received a portfolio in Mr Sarkozy's initial government.
With Ms Lagarde's appointment to Bercy, women now head the three key ministries of the interior, justice and finance. Never before has a French president given so much responsibility to women.
Mr Sarkozy also strengthened his "opening" to the left and centre, and his promotion of ethnic minorities in the new government.
Among the 12 junior ministers appointed yesterday are Fadela Amara, the North African Arab founder of Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Submissive) an association which fights for women's rights in the immigrant suburbs.
Ms Amara was previously considered left-wing. Her appointment as junior minister for urban policy, along with that of the Socialist senator Jean-Marie Bockel as junior minister for overseas co-operation and promotion of the French language, was denounced by Socialist leaders as "betrayal".
The youngest, and one of the most promising members of the new government is Rama Yade (30), who is of Senegalese origin.
A former aide in the Senate, the new junior minister for human rights was much noticed as the UMP's punchy spokesperson for la Francophonie during the presidential and legislative campaigns.
Mr Sarkozy is determined to act quickly, despite the setback of the UMP's meagre victory in the legislative election.
He reaffirmed his determination to "reform hard and fast" in a meeting with right-wing leaders on Monday.
"We don't slow anything down," he explained. "We mustn't overestimate the importance of this election. The legislatives are not as important as the presidential election."
A poll published by Le Parisien newspaper yesterday showed that 53 per cent of French people want Mr Sarkozy to forge ahead with reforms, compared with 42 per cent who prefer that he "take his time".
A cabinet meeting today will approve a draft law on a "fiscal package" to exempt overtime hours from tax and social charges, abolish 95 per cent of death duties and deduct interest on property loans from income tax.