FRANCE: In his second television address since France rejected the European constitutional treaty, President Jacques Chirac last night announced the appointment of his close adviser and surrogate son, former interior and foreign minister Dominique de Villepin, as prime minister.
In an unexpected twist, Mr Chirac appointed UMP leader Nicolas Sarkozy - the arch-rival of both Mr Chirac and Mr Villepin - as deputy prime minister.
Last summer Mr Chirac demanded that Mr Sarkozy resign as finance minister before becoming president of the UMP. The French leader has been forced to break his own rule, and Mr Sarkozy will be allowed to serve as a cabinet minister while remaining leader of the party.
The formation of the new government was almost a detail in a speech devoted to the need to draw together in the interests of preserving "the French model"; a model that Mr Sarkozy claims has proved its bankruptcy by producing 10 per cent unemployment for the past 22 years.
Mr Chirac used the phrase nous rassembler - draw together - six times during the short speech, several times followed by the words "in the national interest". France's No vote on May 29th was "a demand to be listened to, a demand for action, a demand for results", he said.
For the third time in less than a week, he promised to "give new impetus" to government policies. Those who still listen to his television discourses ask why, if what the president is promising is possible, it wasn't done before.
"The May 29th vote opened up, it is true, a difficult period," Mr Chirac said. "In respect of the message sent by the French people, France must act."
France could neither preserve its economic and social model nor "carry our values into the world" without maintaining her place in Europe, he said, repeating the theme he used throughout the failed referendum campaign.
With France's partners, he promised, "I shall seize every possible chance to renew a great European ambition". But obviously, he added, "the government's priority is employment".
Opinion polls show that joblessness was the first reason people voted No to the constitutional treaty. Mr Chirac said he would head a "national mobilisation" for employment "in respect of our French model".
Alluding to Mr Sarkozy's praise for Britain and criticism of the French system, he said: "Our model is not of the Anglo-Saxon type. It is not synonymous with immobility. It is founded on dynamism and individual initiative, on solidarity and social dialogue.
"What is at stake is to show that by acting together, with only the national interest at heart, we are capable of winning the battle for employment."
Both Mr Chirac and Mr de Villepin praised Mr Raffarin for his "courage" and "exemplary devotion". In April Mr Villepin provoked a crisis with Mr Raffarin by calling for "more daring and determined" government policies.
Mr Chirac's choice of prime minister and deputy prime minister was severely criticised by François Bayrou, the leader of the centre-right UDF, which is allied with the ruling UMP.
Mr Bayrou said he had refused to join the new government because, "despite successive condemnations of the Raffarin government by the French, its two pillars, Dominique de Villepin and Nicolas Sarkozy, have been enthroned together".
Mr Villepin and Mr Sarkozy had insulted each other last week, he recalled. This announcement had been made in an atmosphere that fell short of the imagination required by the situation of "a torn France".