Anti-Iraq war de Villepin named new French PM

President Jacques Chirac today appointed Dominique de Villepin, a loyalist who was France’s voice against the Iraq war, as prime minister, to head a new government in response to a humiliating referendum defeat.

De Villepin, 51, moves from the Interior Ministry to replace Jean-Pierre Raffarin, dumped after voters roundly rejected Chirac’s call for the ratification of a European Union constitution on Sunday.