FRENCH PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy reappointed François Fillon as prime minister yesterday but reshuffled his cabinet in an attempt to position himself for re-election in 2012.
After months of speculation and open lobbying between rivals for the prime minister’s office, the president opted to retain the popular and increasingly indispensable Mr Fillon, signalling that the focus would remain on economic reform in the run-up to the presidential election in 2012.
Finance minister Christine Lagarde and interior minister Brice Hortefeux, a close ally of the president, retained their key portfolios, while the former prime minister and current mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppé, returned to cabinet as defence minister.
Unveiled by the Élysée Palace last night after a weekend of rumour and intrigue, the new cabinet sees the departure of a number of high-profile figures. Jean-Louis Borloo, the centrist who was considered Mr Fillon’s strongest rival, turned down a number of senior ministerial roles and resigned from government, his entourage said, strengthening the possibility that he may stand against Mr Sarkozy for the presidency in 2012.
Bernard Kouchner was replaced at the foreign ministry by the veteran cabinet member Michèle Alliot-Marie, who moves from justice. Mr Kouchner, a long-time left-wing figure, was the most prominent symbol of Mr Sarkozy's policy of ouverture, or opening up, to political opponents when he was elected in 2007.
The only remaining cabinet member with roots on the left is Eric Besson, loathed by his erstwhile colleagues in the Socialist Party, who moved from immigration and national identity to industry.
Labour minister Eric Woerth, damaged by the long-running Bettencourt financial scandal, and another centrist – defence minister Hervé Morin – were also dropped.
Despite speculation that Mr Sarkozy could use the reshuffle to reorient his government towards the centre, his decisions suggest a consolidation of control by his own UMP party.
The party president, Xavier Bertrand, was given a powerful new position as employment and health minister and replaced in his former post by the ambitious Jean-François Copé, who declined a senior cabinet post to take up the job that Mr Sarkozy himself used as a springboard to the presidential nomination in 2007.
In an attempt to retain centrist representation in cabinet after the departures of the heavyweight Mr Borloo and Mr Morin, the president appointed Michel Mercier to justice.
Mr Morin, who leads the Nouveau Centre party, said he had stepped down after it became clear Mr Sarkozy did not intend to make a “gesture” towards centrists in cabinet. He also criticised the presence of “a UMP electoral campaign team” in the government.
The new line-up is notable for the departure of two ministers from minority backgrounds, with Rama Yade (sport and youth) and Fadela Amara (urban affairs) both vacating their departments. Jeannette Bougrab, the current head of the state’s anti-discrimination watchdog, becomes minister for youth affairs.
While the reshuffle is relatively limited, it significantly strengthens Mr Fillon, who is already the fifth longest-serving prime minister in the history of the fifth French Republic. With his popularity ratings higher than Mr Sarkozy, he is seen as increasingly indispensable to the ruling majority.
The two men, France's couple exécutif, are not particularly close, although they share the distinction of having fallen out with former president Jacques Chirac and of entering politics without having studied at grandes écoles, the traditional finishing schools for the French elite.
Although Mr Fillon is regarded as coming from the left of the ruling UMP, they have similar beliefs on economic policy.
But the pair are temperamentally very different, and having the calm, reserved Fillon, who comes from the Loire region, at his side is felt to help reassure voters uneasy with the style of the hyperactive, impetuous urbanite in the Élysée.
The opposition Socialist Party said the reshuffle was insignificant and criticised the decision to retain Mr Fillon in the prime minister’s office, “where he failed to find solutions to France’s problems”, said spokesman Benoît Hamon.
“It shows that the head of state and the right don’t have political alternatives to pursuing austerity that requires sacrifices of the French people,” Mr Hamon added. Referring to the months of speculation and the public spectacle of bitter infighting between rivals for preferment, the socialist Claude Bartolone said: “All that, for this?”