French President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a streamlined cabinet on Friday and broke new ground by naming a popular leftist as foreign minister, reshaping the finance ministry and handing women almost half the posts.
Maintaining an election promise, Sarkozy cut the cabinet in half, appointing a 15-strong team that spanned party divides and mixed seasoned politicians with relative newcomers.
Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who was appointed on Thursday, held their first cabinet meeting within hours of the nominations, sending a clear signal that they want to get to work immediately on their reform programme. "I am of course proud of this government," Sarkozy told reporters. "It is an open, efficient government."
Alain Juppe, a former prime minister, became the government number two, heading a new super-ministry that combines the environment, sustainable development, transport and energy. Jean-Louis Borloo, the previous labour minister and a moderate centrist, becomes France's economy chief in charge of economic strategy, employment, industry, trade and tourism.
"My only mission is to cut unemployment to 5 percent by the end of Nicolas Sarkozy's five-year mandate, as he has pledged," Borloo told Le Monde newspaper. France's unemployment is running at more than eight percent - the highest in the eurozone.
Borloo will work alongside Eric Woerth, former treasurer of Sarkozy's ruling UMP party, who will be responsible for the state budget and all aspects of public spending. Breaking with tradition, Sarkozy reached out to the opposition camp and picked three leftists for his administration, including former Socialist health minister and human rights activist Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister.
The Socialists said Sarkozy wanted to destabilise them in the wake of their presidential election defeat, and indicated that Kouchner, the co-founder of the Nobel prize-winning charity Doctors without Borders, would be expelled from the party.
Many of the important social reforms promised by Sarkozy, including curbing union powers and creating a simplified, single labour contract, will fall to his former campaign spokesman, Xavier Bertrand, in his new role as labour minister.
Rewarding centrist allies, Sarkozy appointed Herve Morin as defence minister. He will replace Michele Alliot-Marie, a UMP heavyweight who switches to the interior ministry and is the most senior of seven women in the cabinet. "I am proud ... of the responsibility given to women. Parity is not a passing fashion," Sarkozy said.
The cabinet marks a radical shake-up of power, with a number of ministries merging, like health and sport, some disappearing, like the civil service ministry, and some new entities emerging, like the ministry for immigration and national identity.
One of the first tasks of the new government will be to campaign for legislative elections on June 10 and 17, which the president must win to enact his reform programme. Opinion polls have suggested he will secure a strong majority. Sarkozy wants his ministers to prepare a raft of laws to present to the new parliament as soon as it sits this summer.
One of the priorities will be to draw up a mini-budget to introduce promised reductions in corporate and inheritance tax. As the government list was being read out, Sarkozy, who only took office on Wednesday, met unions at troubled European plane maker Airbus at its headquarters in Toulouse.
Airbus parent EADS was plunged into a financial crisis during the election campaign and Sarkozy said the shareholder pact, which guarantees Franco-German parity, had to change. Germany has resisted repeated French attempts in recent years to seize greater control of the company, which was founded in 2000 with a merger of the two countries' top aerospace firms.