French President Jacques Chirac was expected yesterday to make popular Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy his finance minister, handing him the key job of pushing through reforms that could cause widespread protests.
Chirac was under pressure to unveil big changes in the government after his ruling conservatives suffered a crushing defeat in regional elections, underlining widespread discontent with government cost-cutting and other reforms.
French newspapers said Sarkozy, 49, was likely to move to the Finance Ministry after Chirac's decision on Tuesday to reappoint Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, whose lack of popularity hinders his ability to force through reforms.
Sarkozy is widely considered one of the few politicians with the charisma and stature needed to head the Finance Ministry at a time when voters are fed up with government economic policy, budget cuts and high unemployment figures.
"On one hand we have a society which has shown its anger in dramatic fashion. On the other we have political leaders who are displaying a certain deafness," said Jerome Sainte-Marie of polling institute BVA.
"It is quite an explosive cocktail," he said.
Sarkozy would replace Francis Mer, putting a seasoned politician in the place of an industrialist who is often criticized for not taking political credit for any successes.
Opinion polls regularly show he is the most popular politician in France. He is also an ambitious and energetic man whose overt desire to become president has strained his relations with Chirac.
French newspapers expected Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin to become interior minister and suggested his job at the Foreign Ministry might go to Michel Barnier, EU Commissioner for Regional Policy and Institutional Reform.
The victory for the Socialist Party and its allies in this month's election to 26 regional councils followed a string of strikes and street protests by teachers, hospital workers and public sector scientists, all angry at budget cuts.
Raffarin has said the reforms must go on if France is to make its economy more competitive and fulfil promises to bring its public deficit to within EU limits.
But many analysts believe some of the harsher planned measures will now have to be toned down, including ambitious proposals intended to trim the US$13.40 billion annual deficit of France's public health care system.
Allies questioned Chirac's decision to stick with Raffarin, a little-known regional senator before Chirac drafted him in to head his government after parliamentary elections in 2002.
Others said Chirac had made the strategic choice of keeping Raffarin until European Parliament elections in June and could ditch him then if the government's fortunes have not improved.
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