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.

Chirac charged Villepin with the task of forming a new government. De Villepin arrived at the presidential Elysee Palace just minutes after Chirac bid farewell to Raffarin with a handshake on the palace steps.

Nicolas Sarkozy, who heads Chirac’s governing centre-right party, is being brought back into government to head the Interior Ministry that de Villepin vacates, MP Yves Jego, who is close to Sarkozy, told France-Info radio. There was no immediate confirmation from Chirac’s office of the reported appointment for Sarkozy.

The silver-haired de Villepin takes over at a difficult time: Unemployment is running at 10% and the French political establishment is reeling from Sunday’s referendum that marked a stinging humiliation for Chirac.

Raffarin, in a short address after the president accepted his resignation, promised his successor would work to bring a significant drop in unemployment in the last two years of Chirac’s second term – which could be his last.

“I confirm this commitment, even if the drop in the dollar and the rise in oil prices delay it for a few months,” he said.

Raffarin defended his three-year record as prime minister, saying he acted to protect the future of the pension system and state health care, among other programmes.

“I have always been aware that what is healthy for the nation does not go unblamed by public opinion,” said Raffarin.

Polls showed he was one of the most unpopular prime ministers of the French Fifth Republic that was founded in 1958.

PROFILE:

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Poet and politician, silver-haired statesman Dominique de Villepin captured the world’s attention with an impassioned speech in 2003 supporting France’s opposition to an invasion of Iraq.

Villepin, 51, was named prime minister of France today, 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 de Villepin was an unusual choice to be France’s top cop: Chirac hoped the job would give him more street credibility with voters. But de 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 de 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,” de Villepin 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 de Villepin and his anti-war ally, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, as weasels.

De 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, de 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 de Villepin. His published works include volumes of poetry and a 634-page book about Napoleon.

De 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 to cherished French social programmes like pensions and health care.

Like many of the French elite, de Villepin studied at the prestigious National Administration School.

He was a spokesman at the French Embassy in Washington during the 1980s; he polished his excellent English there and as a diplomat in India.

As Chirac’s closest adviser from 1995 to 2002, de Villepin counselled the president to dissolve the legislature in April 1997, a political disaster for their centre-right camp. In the early election that followed, the Socialists took the majority.

De Villepin has nevertheless maintained Chirac’s admiration. In 2000, the French president told Le Monde: “It is very rare to meet a man like him, who is both a poet and a very good squadron commander.”