PARIS — Responding to one of the worst political crises of his 10 years in office, French President Jacques Chirac named a veteran diplomat as prime minister Tuesday and said the new government would concentrate on reducing unemployment.
Dominique de Villepin, best known as the fiery, silver-haired spokesman for France's opposition to the Iraq war, replaced Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who resigned Tuesday after voters rejected the proposed European Union constitution.
The referendum's defeat Sunday was a rebuff to EU policies seen as a threat to French prosperity and sovereignty. The results also reflected anger over Chirac's stewardship of the economy, which is weighed down by a 10% unemployment rate.
Chirac appointed Raffarin in 2002, presenting him as a low-key, accessible figure sympathetic to voters exasperated by France's economic and political stagnation. Instead, Raffarin became a symbol of the government's inability to create jobs, spur growth and reform a bloated state bureaucracy.
De Villepin, 51, takes the helm as an influential presidential ally who has advised Chirac during victories and debacles. As foreign minister in 2003, he led a diplomatic offensive against the approaching war in Iraq that culminated in a threat to wield France's veto in the United Nations Security Council. The risky gambit hurt French-U.S. relations but sent Chirac's popularity soaring at home and in the Arab world.
On the other hand, some center-right leaders blame De Villepin's taste for the dramatic for Chirac's 1997 decision to call early legislative elections in response to labor protests. That gamble backfired: The opposition won control of Parliament, forcing Chirac to share power with a center-left Cabinet for five years.
This year, the president gambled again by choosing to submit the European constitution to the vote of the people rather than opting for legislative approval. It was another bet lost.
An admirer of Napoleon who writes poetry and political essays, De Villepin must focus his hard-charging style and volcanic oratory on reviving a battered government.
Although Chirac announced that De Villepin's primary mission would be creating jobs, he said the government wanted to avoid U.S.-style free-market strategies that many French leaders see as favoring business over workers.
