PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy named his first Cabinet on Friday,
radically revamping the government, with nearly as many women as men and
humanitarian crusader Bernard Kouchner as France's new foreign minister.
![](xin_220504181713883248824.jpg) France's new President Nicolas
Sarkozy, left, shakes hands with France's farmers union (FNSEA) President
Jean-Michel Lemetayer after their meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris,
May 17, 2007. [AP]
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Other appointments included former
Prime Minister Alain Juppe in charge of the environment - an area Sarkozy says
is a priority - and Jean-Louis Borloo as minister for the economy and labor.
The Cabinet, trimmed to 15 ministers, offered both youth and experience, and
near-equal distribution among the sexes. Former Defense Minister Michele
Alliot-Marie was named interior minister, and Sarkozy campaign adviser Rachita
Dati will head the Justice Ministry.
The president also named longtime friend Brice Hortefeux to lead a new
Ministry of Immigration, Integration and National Identity - another Sarkozy
innovation - aimed at helping unite a country with rising ethnic diversity and
tensions.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the conservative-led government was left-wing
Kouchner, a co-founder of the Nobel Prize-winning Doctors Without Borders
medical charity. Sarkozy reached over the political divide also in selecting
Herve Morin, of a rival center-right party, as defense minister.
The posts were announced by presidential chief of staff Claude Gueant outside
the presidential palace.