SPECULATION THAT French president Nicolas Sarkozy is about to replace his prime minister, François Fillon, has grown after the head of government appeared to suggest he was prepared to move on.
Most modern French presidents have changed their prime ministers in mid-term, but there has been debate over whether Mr Sarkozy’s desire to refresh his cabinet may be outweighed by the need to retain its most popular member. A reshuffle is due in the coming weeks.
Earlier this week, Mr Fillon gave an interview in which he distanced himself from the president, pointing out that he had agreed merely to make an “alliance” with Mr Sarkozy prior to his election in 2007 and that the head of state was “never my mentor”. In a further excerpt from the interview, released yesterday, Mr Fillon appeared to go further. Asked whether it was desirable to keep the same prime minister for a five-year term, he suggested that a change could take place once a government’s reforms had been “put in place”.
Government officials have said that the contentious pensions Bill due to come before the senate later this month will be Mr Sarkozy’s last major reform before the 2012 election.
The marriage of Sarkozy and Fillon, France’s couple exécutif, has always been a union of reason. The two men 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 élite. 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 have never been particularly close. Having the calm, reserved Fillon, who comes from the Loire region, at his side is felt to have helped reassure voters uneasy with the style of the hyperactive, impetuous urbanite in the Élysée.
Should he depart in the reshuffle, Mr Fillon is tipped by his allies as a potential mayor of Paris, a post which will become vacant in 2013, or head of the UMP party.
Asked about his future, Mr Fillon insisted there was life after Hôtel de Matignon, the prime minister’s office in Paris. “Can there be another political life? Certainly,” he said. “I think you have to be able to fix yourself a new challenge. . . I’ve been in politics for 30 years . . . and I have no plans to start over at the bottom again.”
Another candidate for removal from cabinet may be foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, the most prominent of several figures with roots on the left who were brought into government as part of Mr Sarkozy’s policy of ouverture, or opening up, to political opponents.
According to an RTL radio journalist who travelled to Haiti with the minister this week, Mr Kouchner said he knew he would be moved in the upcoming reshuffle.
Separately, it was confirmed yesterday that former president Jacques Chirac will be tried in March on charges that he gave fictitious city hall jobs to supporters during his term as mayor of Paris.
The trial was expected to begin next month, but Judge Dominique Pauthe pushed it back to allow a similar inquiry in the suburb of Nanterre to be completed and the two cases combined.
Mr Chirac, who denies the charges, will be the first former president to stand trial.