Under pressure to change course after a pounding at the polls, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin named a new government on Wednesday, but opposition critics rejected the shake-up as cosmetic.
Among sizable changes was the appointment of France's charismatic top diplomat, Dominique de Villepin, known for his criticism of the US-led war in Iraq, to the post of interior minister.
He replaces Nicolas Sarkozy, a highly popular interior minister who was named to head the powerful Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry. With the title of "minister of state," Sarkozy ranks just under the prime minister.
Replacing de Villepin, who headed the Foreign Ministry since May 2002, is European Commissioner Michel Barnier. Barnier has expressed concern over what France sees as American domination of Europe but has also called for strong US ties with the continent.
Replacing Barnier as European commissioner is Jacques Barrot, head of the governing party in the National Assembly.
"There are very important changes of people and there will be changes of action and a new political line," said Dominique Bussereau, new deputy budget minister under Sarkozy.
However, critics noted that almost all the ministers hailed from President Jacques Chirac's party, the Union for a Popular Movement, and dismissed the changes as a game of musical chairs.
The Cabinet shake-up follows the governing right's massive defeat in Sunday's regional elections in which the Socialist-led opposition bulldozed its way to victory across France. The right ended up with only one region in mainland France, Alsace. The left took 20.
To the surprise of many, the president decided on Tuesday to retain the unpopular Raffarin but change the government. He also decided to move ahead with reforms that turned the country against the leadership.
This time, however, the plan is to proceed with a more human touch.
The Cabinet makeup reflected that concern, with a minister charged with "social cohesion" -- the tousle-haired former Urban Affairs Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, named to an enlarged Labor Ministry taking in urban matters, housing and integration.
Few posts were left untouched. However, Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, Justice Minister Dominique Perben, Transportation Minister Gilles de Robien, and Agriculture Minister Herve Gaymard all kept their positions.
The new Cabinet is to hold its first meeting today, and Chirac was to explain the new team's priorities in a TV address Thursday night.
The regional elections were seen as a midterm test for Chirac whose stunning 2002 presidential victory was assured with backing from the left as the nation united to block his rival, extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.
However, the Socialist Party, which led the electoral sweep Sunday, dismissed the new government as "used up before it gets started."
"It's a government ... with no other ambition than to buy time," said Socialist Party spokesman Julien Dray.
"Lots of French know tonight the disdain with which their votes have been treated," Dray said.
The head of the French Communist Party, Marie-George Buffet, said the Cabinet changes were a "contemptuous response" to voters.
A leading political analyst, Pascal Perrineau, agreed with many critics that it was "imprudent" of Chirac to keep Raffarin on as prime minister.
"Given the amplitude of the electorate's rejection of the right, the response is insufficient," Perrineau, director of the Center for the Study of French Political Life, said by telephone.
"Keeping the same prime minister, keeping the same ministers but changing their places doesn't suffice to calm the protests of the electors," he said. "This is not sufficient."
Ministries considered sensitive got new chiefs, while others took on expanded roles and still others gained in prestige.
Social Affairs Minister Francois Fillon was named to head the Ministry of Education and Research. Teachers have held numerous strikes, joined recently by researchers demanding funds for their elite state-run laboratories so they can keep up with colleagues abroad.
The mayor of Toulouse, Philippe Douste-Blazy, a former culture minister, was named health minister, replacing Jean-Francois Mattei, whose authority was badly damaged by the catastrophic heat wave last August that killed nearly 15,000 people.
Culture Minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon, who was unable to stop ongoing strikes by performing artists, was replaced by Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, spokesman for Chirac's party, the Union for a Popular Movement.
Renaud Dutreil, the minister for Small and Medium Business, will head the ministry of Civil Service and State Reform.
The Raffarin government has failed to trim the jobless rate, now at 9.6 percent, and angered citizens as it moves to reform social security to keep it from going bankrupt.
Waves of protests, by teachers, hospital workers, social workers, and most recently elite researchers, have filled French streets.
Strikes have grounded airplanes, slowed public transport and trains.
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