New PM names France cabinet

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin tonight named France’s first centre-right Cabinet in five years, selecting a veteran diplomat to lead the Foreign Ministry and for the first time a woman as head of defence.

Raffarin, who was appointed by re-elected President Jacques Chirac after Sunday’s overwhelming victory, is counting on the Cabinet to win back voters in time for crucial parliamentary elections next month.

Dominique de Villepin, Chirac’s chief of staff, was named foreign minister, while Michele Alliot-Marie, a parliament member and head of Chirac’s conservative political party, will be France’s new defence minister.

Nicolas Sarkozy, mayor of the exclusive Paris suburb of Neuilly, will head a revamped Interior Ministry. With France facing rising crime, his role has been beefed up to place greater emphasis on domestic security.

Francis Mer, chairman of Luxembourg-based Arcelor, the world’s largest steelmaker, was named finance minister. Mer has spent the last 30 years in French industry and played a key role in the painful restructuring of the French steel industry in the early 1990s.

Alain Lambert, head of the Senate budget and finance committee from the centre-right UDF party, was named budget minister.

Among others appointed were Dominique Perben, an MP from Chirac’s Rally for the Republic party, as justice minister. A philosopher, Luc Ferry, was named head of the Education Ministry.

The post of labour minister went to Francois Fillon, of Chirac’s RPR party. Gilles de Robien, of the UDF party, was named tourism minister.

De Villepin has been Chirac’s chief of staff since 1995. He began his diplomatic career in 1980 when he was in charge of southern Africa at the Foreign Ministry. He also served as a foreign policy adviser on the Middle East and spokesman for the French Embassy in Washington.

Alliot-Marie, the high-profile head of Chirac’s RPR party since 1999, served as sports minister in 1993-95. She holds a seat in the French Parliament and is mayor of the town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, near the border with Spain.

Raffarin’s team of 15 ministers and 12 junior ministers has just over a month to make its mark, as Chirac and Raffarin plan a campaign designed to unite conservative forces and fight off challenges from the left and extreme right in next month’s parliamentary elections.

Socialist leader Francois Hollande expected to lead a tooth-and-nail fight to win on June 9 and 16 to avoid being shut out of power on a national scale.

If the left takes the majority of seats in the National Assembly, Chirac will be forced to replace Raffarin with a left wing prime minister who, in turn, would overhaul Raffarin’s new Cabinet.

Left wing parties are eager to stage a comeback after Raffarin’s predecessor, Socialist Lionel Jospin, suffered an embarrassing loss to far-right contender Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of the presidential race.

Though Chirac won Sunday’s runoff by a record 82%, it was largely a vote against Le Pen not a mandate for Chirac.

Chirac is determined not to relive another ‘‘cohabitation,’’ an uncomfortable power-sharing arrangement between a president and prime minister of different political stripes. He already lived through five years of conflict with Jospin.

Raffarin’s appointment came soon after Jospin, as expected, turned in his resignation. The Socialist chief came in an embarrassing third behind Le Pen in the presidential race’s first round on April 21, prompting him to quit politics.

Raffarin belongs to the small, market-oriented Liberal Democracy party. He is a former marketing executive who favours free trade putting him at odds with many leftist rivals.

Robert Hue, the Communist Party chief, complained that Raffarin was named to ‘‘put in place, without delay, the conservative and ultra-liberal program of Jacques Chirac.’’