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PARIS, June 19: President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday reshuffled his cabinet, putting a woman in charge of the French economy for the first time and naming a new number two after his party lost seats in elections.
The right-wing president moved Jean-Louis Borloo from the finance ministry to become head of an environment super-ministry after Alain Juppe resigned from the cabinet when he failed to win a seat in Sunday's parliamentary vote.
Christine Lagarde became the first woman to head the economy and finance ministry, an appointment that will see her play a key role in shaping Sarkozy's ambitious reforms. Former foreign minister Michel Barnier took over from Lagarde as agriculture minister and about a dozen junior ministers were appointed, some from the left and two from ethnic minorities.
MUSLIM FEMINIST: A militant Muslim feminist, Fadela Amara, became junior minister for urban affairs, and a Senegalese-born woman Rama Yade, 30, a junior minister for foreign affairs and human rights.
Socialist senator Jean-Marie Bockel was named junior minister for foreign assistance and francophony, bringing to three the number of leftists in foreign affairs.
Sarkozy scored a political coup when he appointed prominent Socialist Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Doctors Without Borders, as foreign minister last month, confounding critics who had warned that he would concentrate power in a rightwing clique.Most of the 15 senior ministers, seven of them women, appointed last month after Sarkozy defeated Socialist Segolene Royal in the presidential election remained in their posts.
Sarkozy also named France rugby coach Bernard Laporte as sports minister, a post he will take up later this year following the World Cup, saying his priority was to win the event.
A special session of the newly-elected National Assembly is to be convened next week to push through a first round of reforms, including tax breaks aimed at jump-starting the economy and lowering unemployment hovering at 8.2 percent, one of the highest in Europe.
One month after Sarkozy took office promising sweeping reforms, his UMP party won a National Assembly majority in Sunday's vote, but it lost more than 40 seats while the opposition Socialists made surprise gains.
And in a symbolic blow to the government, Juppe, a former prime minister and mayor of Bordeaux, lost to a Socialist and had to resign from the cabinet.
Sarkozy had brought him back from political exile after his conviction in a party finance scandal that had prevented him from holding public office for a year.—AFP
