Chirac keeps Raffarin as French PM
PARIS, France -- French President Jacques Chirac is to reshuffle his Cabinet but will keep his unpopular prime minister after his center-right party suffered a landslide defeat in regional election.
The left won 50 percent of the vote to 37 percent for Chirac's UMP party in Sunday's regional elections widely seen as a censure of the government over high unemployment and the reform program.
Commentators had predicted Jean-Pierre Raffarin would be sacked but on Tuesday he left the presidential palace in Paris smiling after hearing he would keep his job.
"He (Chirac) named Mr. Jean-Pierre Raffarin as the prime minister and asked him to form a new government," the presidency said, adding that the new team would be announced on Wednesday.
The decision shocked many commentators because Sunday's defeat had been interpreted as a vote of no-confidence in Raffarin and his economic policies, and it raised further doubts about the pace and depth of cost-cutting reforms.
The defeat, Chirac's first national test since he and his party swept presidential and legislative polls in 2002, marked a dramatic turnaround from a year ago, when he won praise within France for his opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
But CNN's European Political Editor Robin Oakley correctly predicted that Raffarin would stay.
"Chirac plucked Raffarin from obscurity and can get rid of him if he wants to ... but when would be the right time to do that? Chirac still has to push through the painful health reforms so better for Raffarin to stay on and carry the unpopularity ... rather than appoint a new man."
Paul Bacot, a political analyst, concurred. "If you want to go down a road full of potholes, you are better off going down it with a battered car than with a new one," he told Reuters.
"If Chirac wants to continue with the reforms, it is better that they be done by Raffarin, who is already worn out and very unpopular."
But others were less convinced that Chirac had been astute.
"I think this is politically very risky, if you consider the scale of the government's defeat in the elections," said political scientist Mariette Sineau. "There's a risk of people taking to the streets to voice their anger."
David Naude, an economist at Deutsche Bank, told Reuters: "This is the worst possible outcome for economic reform but I can only imagine he will only be kept on until June ... Raffarin is burned out and in no position to reform."
The reshuffle will move Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin to a new ministry.
Villepin -- a staunch and vocal opponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq -- will become minister of the interior. (Full story)
