PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy named his first Cabinet on Friday,
radically revamping the government, with nearly as many women as men and
humanitarian crusader Bernard Kouchner as France's new foreign minister.
France's new President Nicolas
Sarkozy, left, shakes hands with France's farmers union (FNSEA) President
Jean-Michel Lemetayer after their meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris,
May 17, 2007. [AP]
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Other appointments included former
Prime Minister Alain Juppe in charge of the environment - an area Sarkozy says
is a priority - and Jean-Louis Borloo as minister for the economy and labor.
The Cabinet, trimmed to 15 ministers, offered both youth and experience, and
near-equal distribution among the sexes. Former Defense Minister Michele
Alliot-Marie was named interior minister, and Sarkozy campaign adviser Rachita
Dati will head the Justice Ministry.
The president also named longtime friend Brice Hortefeux to lead a new
Ministry of Immigration, Integration and National Identity - another Sarkozy
innovation - aimed at helping unite a country with rising ethnic diversity and
tensions.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the conservative-led government was left-wing
Kouchner, a co-founder of the Nobel Prize-winning Doctors Without Borders
medical charity. Sarkozy reached over the political divide also in selecting
Herve Morin, of a rival center-right party, as defense minister.
The posts were announced by presidential chief of staff Claude Gueant outside
the presidential palace.