Villepin: Man Who "Double-Crossed' Colin Powell Named New French PM

[onedomino]

Villepin Named New French PM
Tuesday, May 31, 2005 Posted: 9:01 AM EDT (1301 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/05/31/france.eu/

Villepin was France's foreign minister during the war in Iraq.

PARIS, France (CNN) -- French President Jacques Chirac has appointed Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin to replace Jean-Pierre Raffarin as prime minister.

Raffarin resigned Tuesday in the aftermath of the rejection by French voters of the European Union constitution in a referendum on Sunday.

Villepin, 51, served as France's foreign minister from 2002 to 2004. During that time he gained a worldwide reputation for his impassioned defense of the French stance against a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Chirac said he would announce further changes in the government and planned to address the nation Tuesday evening.

Villepin arrived at the presidential Elysee Palace just minutes after Chirac bid farewell to Raffarin with a handshake on the palace steps.

In a short statement, Raffarin, who was prime minister for three years, denied his departure was connected to the referrendum.

Villepin is a long-standing Chirac loyalist and was once his top adviser. Critics point to his never having held elective office.

Chirac and Villepin did not immediately name a new cabinet.

Villepin had been widely tipped to replace the unpopular Raffarin, whose economic reforms and poor record on jobs were blamed for the scale of Sunday's referendum defeat.

rest of article: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/05/31/france.eu/

"Double-Crossed"

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/2003/0526course.htm

January 20 has gone down in history as the day of the "diplomatic ambush", when the Frenchman caught his American counterpart unawares with a passionate public assault on precipitate military action in Iraq.

It all happened after the Security Council meeting ended. First Mr Powell spoke to the press outside the chamber and left for lunch at the French residence on Park Avenue. Mr de Villepin, as chairman, had to wait for the journalists to arrive for his formal press conference. He used the occasion to condemn what he saw as a rush to war. "We will not associate ourselves with military intervention that is not supported by the international community," he said. "Military intervention would be the worst possible solution." Richard Armitage, Mr Powell's deputy, remembers the secretary of state's reaction at lunch: "He was very unamused . . . When he's unamused, he gets pretty cold . . . He puts the eyes on you and there is no doubt when his jaws are jacked. It's not a pretty sight."

"He felt betrayed," according to another senior State Department official. "I don't know if de Villepin meant to double-cross him, or that's just the way it happened." Mr de Villepin denies any malign intent.

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[onedomino]

De Villepin's Appointment Signals End of Reform Hopes
By John Lichfield in Paris
01 June 2005

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=643070

To a chorus of boos on the left, and some anger on the right. President Jacques Chirac appointed Dominique de Villepin, an unelected member of the French mandarin class, as prime minister yesterday.

The president appealed, in a solemn television address for France to "ìmobilise" to combat unemployment and defend the "French social model" and the "national interest".

In the wake of Sunday's cataclysmic rejection of the European Union constitution * shaped largely by a wave of anti-free trade feeling on the French left * M. Chirac's comments seemed to point to a nominally centre-right government which would be interventionist, and possibly even protectionist.

M. de Villepin, 51, is best known for his defence in the UN of France's stand against the Iraq war in March 2002. He has been foreign minister and interior minister but he has never stood for election to any political office.

His appointment was met with derision on the left and disappointment and fury among some members of parliament in M. Chirac's centre-right party, the UMP. There was even talk among a minority of UMP deputies last night of voting against M. de Villepin when it comes to a vote of confidence in the national assembly.

Many UMP deputies wanted President Chirac to give the job to the party president, Nicolas Sarkozy, 50, the rising star of the French right and the likely centre-right presidential candidate in 2007.

President Chirac refused to do so, partly because he dislikes and distrusts M. Sarkozy, partly because the younger man would have insisted on reforming the public sector-dominated French economy.

M. Chirac feared a Sarkozy government bent on market-opening reforms could plunge France into a violent round of street politics. M. Chirac may also harbour hopes of running for a third term in 2007, or boosting M. de Villepin into a presidential contender who might yet block M. Sarkozy's rise.

M. de Villepin is a complete stranger to economic and social policy. His brief from M. Chirac is to calm the political mood with reflationary measures to boost growth and cut the 10 per cent unemployment rate.

In a TV address last night , M. Chirac rejected the idea of a Thatcher-Blair approach to economic revival.

"National mobilisation" against unemployment must "scrupulously respect our French model," M. Chirac said. "This is not the Anglo-Saxon model but neither is it a synonym for immobility".

The de Villepin government * whose composition will be announced today* can, therefore, be expected to adopt a less reformist, more protectionist and high-spending approach, which could put Paris on a collision course with Brussels.

M. Sarkozy has agreed to serve as M. de Villepin's deputy and return to his old post as interior minister. That is a climb-down by M. Chirac, who had refused to allow his rival to hold the UMP presidency and a cabinet job.

The outgoing prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, came to office three years ago promising an aggressive, reforming government for the lower echelons.

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[Annie]

Personally I think Chirac has chosen well, narcissicists belong with the same. I do not believe as some that the French were choosing necessarily to 'go their own way' as some would try to explain it, rather they were choosing to continue on their road towards communism.

As for the de Villepin appointment, at least one UK paper reports many think it a disastrous choice:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5205466-106710,00.html

Weakened Chirac gambles on Villepin
Outcry at choice for premier

Jon Henley in Paris
Wednesday June 1, 2005

Guardian

A badly weakened President Jacques Chirac named Dominique de Villepin, his longstanding ally, as France's new prime minister yesterday in what commentators and opponents alike described as an error of historic proportions.

The elegant interior minister and former foreign secretary, known for his stirring UN speeches in defence of France's opposition to the Iraq war, replaces Jean-Pierre Raffarin in a shakeup after the government's crushing defeat in Sunday's referendum on the EU constitution.

Mr Chirac also appointed Nicolas Sarkozy minister of state or number two in the new government, a role that government sources said France's most popular politician would most likely fill from the high-profile interior ministry while remaining leader of the ruling UMP party.

That appointment, analysts agree, sets up a potentially divisive struggle between Mr Sarkozy, a longstanding Chirac foe, and the new prime minister for the right's nomination in the 2007 presidential elections. Not many would put money on Mr Villepin winning.

In a live television broadcast, Mr Chirac said the result of Sunday's referendum had opened up "a period of difficulty and uncertainty" for Europe and for France. He said he had heard voters' "demand for action, demand for results" and made France's national priority "the battle for jobs".

The battle, he added, would be fought "according to our French model, which is not an Anglo-Saxon model but is based on dialogue and national solidarity ... We must win the battle for jobs while resting faithful to our values". Mr Villepin had the "authority, competence and experience" to do the job, the president said.

Mr Villepin, 51, faces the unenviable task of reshaping the centre-right administration's policies after a referendum used by many voters to show their anger at its reforms and inability to deal with 10%-plus unemployment, which has dogged France for more than 20 years.

Analysts said that in appointing a loyalist, friend and former adviser, Mr Chirac had opted for security; the consequences of putting the ambitious and combative Mr Sarkozy - who has demanded free-market reforms to pull the economy out of its morass - into the prime minister's post were too unpredictable.

But most predicted that choosing Mr Villepin could backfire badly: he is too close to the wounded president to initiate serious reform and he has never held elected office.

In the wake of a vote exposing the extent of the electorate's mistrust of their political class, picking a patrician part-time poet and high-flyer diplomat will be perceived as little better than an insult, commentators warned.

"It's a catastrophe, a real catastrophe," said Philippe Moreau Defarges of the French Institute for International Relations. "People will go on to the streets to show their anger. This is a man who has never been elected, who doesn't represent the people at all. It will turn out badly."

A banking analyst, fearful of a market backlash, described Mr Chirac's decision as "rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic".

The leftwing opposition was vitriolic about the choice, including many Socialists who, like the government, backed a yes vote. "This is a denial of democracy in the light of Sunday's vote," the Socialist members of the upper house of the National Assembly declared in a joint statement.

The Communist party leader Marie-Georges Buffet, a leading no campaigner, said the appointment was "a provocation to the sovereign voice of the people", while the rebel Socialist MP Arnaud Montebourg, another referendum no campaigner, said that it was an "historic" error.

"The citizens of France asked to be listened to," he said. "The president's response is to appoint a man who has never crossed a voter in his life.

"From embassies to ministries, Mr Villepin does not know his country - he knows only honours. This increases yet further the illegitimacy of this government to govern."

The return of Mr Sarkozy is also seen as having possibly dramatic consequences.

Denied the right by Mr Chirac last year to combine the post of finance minister with the leadership of the UMP, Mr Sarkozy opted for the party and has turned it into his fiefdom. Hugely popular on the right but loathed by the Chirac inner circle, he enjoys grassroots backing for a tilt at the presidency in 2007.

Mr Chirac will be hoping Mr Villepin can use the prime minister's post as a springboard, undercutting Mr Sarkozy. "His bet is being able to transform Villepin into a credible presidential candidate," said another political analyst, Nicolas Fauger.

At the high-profile interior ministry, however, Mr Sarkozy is certain to devote his considerable energy to outmanoeuvring the politically inexperienced premier. Together with the UMP party machine, that could make him unstoppable.