New prime minister a diplomat and man of letters
Mr Villepin, 51, was named prime minister of France yesterday, the latest leap in a charmed career as foreign minister, writer, trusted adviser to President Jacques Chirac and, since last year, interior minister.
The patrician Villepin was an unusual choice to be France's top cop: Mr Chirac hoped the job would give him more street credibility with voters. But Mr Villepin left his strongest mark as foreign minister from 2002-2004, facing down US plans to invade Iraq.
At the Security Council, UN delegates broke protocol to applaud Mr Villepin in February 2003 after he argued that war should be a last resort.
"In this temple of the United Nations, we are the guardians of an ideal, the guardians of conscience," he said in the speech. "This onerous responsibility and immense honour we have must lead us to give priority to disarmament through peace."
The attempts also earned him enemies. The New York Post doctored a photo to show Mr Villepin and his anti-war ally, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, as weasels.
Mr Villepin has never held elected office and has an aristocratic air two potential drawbacks for a prime minister, especially as the new government tries to reconnect with the people following Sunday's stinging repudiation of the EU constitution.
Dashing, intellectual and eloquent, Mr Villepin is known to have more than a touch of vanity. Bernadette Chirac, France's first lady, reportedly calls him "Nero," after the megalomaniac Roman emperor who thought himself a great poet.
A senator's son, the new premier has an aristocratic full name, Dominique Marie Francois Rene Galouzeau Villepin. His published works include volumes of poetry and a 634-page book about Napoleon.
Mr Villepin could not be more different from the man he replaces: Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a portly, congenial former coffee salesman who became deeply unpopular after pushing through a series of reforms.
Like many of the French elite, Mr Villepin studied at the prestigious National Administration School. He was a spokesman at the French Embassy in Washington during the 1980s; he polished his English there and as a diplomat in India.
As Mr Chirac's closest adviser from 1995 to 2002, Mr Villepin counselled the president to dissolve the legislature in April 1997, a political disaster for their centre-right camp.
