Sarkozy’s ministers without borders

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ranged across the political spectrum in appointing ministers to his new government. At earlier points in their career, profiles of Bernard Kouchner, Alain Juppé and Jean-Pierre Jouyet have appeared in European Voice, excerpts of which are published below. European Voice subscribers can find the full versions through the archive at www.european-voice.com.

• Minister for Foreign Affairs: Bernard Kouchner, Socialist, founder of Médecins sans Frontières, MEP 1994-99, health minister 1997-99. European Voice profile, 22 July 1999, just after he had become UN Special Representative and Head of UN Interim Administration in Kosovo.

The United Nations’ High Representative for Kosovo is convinced that the international community has a moral obligation to set aside considerations of national sovereignty and intervene in domestic politics in cases where governments massacre or oppress their own people.

People who have observed Kouchner from close quarters tend to agree that he is a ‘broad brush’ man who is more interested in ideas than details.

Kouchner demonstrated his independent streak in dramatic style during his stint as an MEP when, in 1996, he quit the Parliament’s Socialist group to join the left-wing Radicals, saying he wanted to "give a sense of direction to the political debate".

Whatever the real reason for his departure, the episode once again highlighted Kouchner’s penchant for taking impulsive unilateral action.

This reputation for being something of a ‘loose cannon’ is cited by many as one of the reasons why he has never been granted a really meaty post in any of the French governments he has served in.

Although he was a popular member of then French prime minister Lionel Jospin’s team, Kouchner did not really have a free hand at the health ministry. In reality, he served as a somewhat glamorous deputy to the country’s social affairs minister Martine Aubry. "Jospin likes him a great deal, but he would never leave him to his own devices," says one French diplomat.

• Minister for Ecology, Development and Sustainable Territorial Management: Alain Juppé, MEP 1984-86 and July-October 1989, foreign minister 1995-97, prime minister 1995-97. European Voice profile, 18 July 2002, when he was president of the centre-right UMP.

The man who not so long ago was the Fifth Republic’s least popular prime minister now scores some of the highest approval ratings of any of the country’s political big hitters.

When it comes to European issues, Juppé is both well-known and respected in EU capitals.

His stints as both foreign minister and prime minister revealed an ability to play the EU horse-trading game with considerable skill and they were preceded by a spell as an MEP in the mid 1980s.

Juppé’s European vision very much mirrors the line set out by both Jacques Chirac and former French prime minister Lionel Jospin over the past two years.

He favours the creation of a Europe of nation states, not a single federal state. He would like to see a clear European constitution and believes the EU should not enlarge beyond the continent.

So, as far as France’s EU policy goes, a Juppé presidency would not signal a major change of direction.

• EU Affairs Minister: Jean-Pierre Jouyet, Socialist, private office of European Commission president Jacques Delors 1991-95, private office of prime minister Lionel Jospin 1997-2000. European Voice profile, 8 March 2001, when he was director of the French treasury and France’s delegate to the EU’s Economic and Financial Committee.

When Mitterrand defeated Giscard in the 1981 election, Jouyet was already a finance inspector working for the ministry in L’Oise departement. He watched with great interest as the then finance minister Jacques Delors carried out the Left’s wishes and bucked the world trend - introducing retirement at 60, a 39-hour working week, a fifth week of paid holidays, a civil-service recruitment drive, mass nationalisation and a wealth tax.

As a specialist in public finances, Jouyet knew this could not be sustained. So did Delors. In 1983, the minister poached Jouyet to come and work on a major overhaul of the tax system. Within two years of taking power and after three successive devaluations, Delors was fighting a battle within the cabinet to keep the franc within the European Monetary System.

Jouyet was forced to take sides. From 1983 onwards, the 29-year-old official took the view that the left had to abandon old ideas that it could create siege economies protected from international markets. The left had to choose Europe. "I became conscious that the only chance for French success was to be open to the EU market and prevent volatility," he has said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ranged across the political spectrum in appointing ministers to his new government. At earlier points in their career, profiles of Bernard Kouchner, Alain Juppé and Jean-Pierre Jouyet have appeared in European Voice, excerpts of which are published below. European Voice subscribers can find the full versions through the archive at www.european-voice.com.

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