France:French president Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday moved to make good his campaign promise of fundamental reform as he unveiled a streamlined cross-party administration and immediately challenged one of his country's most fiercely guarded industrial taboos - state involvement in the European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS) company.
In his first official domestic visit as president, Mr Sarkozy met unions at the Toulouse headquarters of Airbus yesterday, where he suggested the state could one day sell its 15 per cent stake in the aircraft-maker's Franco-German parent, EADS.
Mr Sarkozy's determination to push through radical reform was made evident yesterday in the composition of his government. Clearly aimed at stealing territory from his political rivals ahead of next month's parliamentary elections, it will include four Socialists and one member of the centrist UDF party among the 15 ministers and four secretary-generals. It boasts an unprecedented number of women as ministers.
"One way of seeing this is that Sarkozy believes what he needs to do is so essential and so radical that for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic he must create a government of national unity despite having a majority in parliament," said Dominique Moïsi, a political commentator and senior adviser to the French Institute of International Relations.
Nor did Mr Sarkozy neglect the party heavyweights, bringing Alain Juppé, the former Chiracian prime minister back to government for the first time since he was convicted of a party funding scandal in 2004. Mr Juppé will become number two to Prime Minister François Fillon as a minister of state and head of a souped-up environment and sustainable development ministry.
Yet the biggest coup is winning the acceptance of popular human rights activist and former Socialist Bernard Kouchner to lead the foreign ministry. Almost immediately François Hollande, head of the Socialist party, said measures would be taken to expel Mr Kouchner from the party.
Jean-Louis Borloo, the former minister for social cohesion and something of an independent political spirit, will become the head of a revamped economy, finance and employment ministry. The government also includes seven women in ministerial positions, including Michèle Alliot-Marie, the former defence minister. In a highly symbolic gesture, Ms Alliot-Marie takes the interior ministry, a particularly sensitive job, given the unrest in the metropolitan suburbs in recent years. - (Financial Times)