Sarkozy will probably apppoint Kouchner as foreign minister. For a while, it was rumored that Védrine might get the job.
President-elect Sarkozy, who was elected on a comparatively pro-American and pro-Israel platform, is considering offering an important job in the new conservative government to a former socialist foreign minister known for his anti-American and anti-Israel opinions.
Mr. Sarkozy succeeds President Chirac on Thursday and is likely to appoint as prime minister François Fillon, 53, a former minister of education and social affairs. It will be Mr. Fillon's task to set up a new government, but Mr. Sarkozy is himself already closely involved in the process.
Mr. Sarkozy wants the Cabinet sworn in quickly — maybe as soon as May 18 — to address the parliamentary elections on June 10 and 17. A large majority for the conservative UMP Party in the National Assembly will help Mr. Sarkozy carry out his far-reaching reform program. Conversely, a bad showing or a socialist victory would turn the president into a lame duck.
Several Chirac-era grandees are expected to get jobs in the Fillon Cabinet. Sources mention Michèle Alliot-Marie, the present minister of defense, who may be appointed to the Interior or the Justice departments. Alain Juppé, a former prime minister under Mr. Chirac, is poised to get a new expanded Ministry of Environment, Energy, and Transportation.
Jean-Louis Borloo, a maverick with a populist touch who was minister of urban affairs and of employment under the second Chirac presidency (2002–2007), may become the economy and employment tsar. Several portfolios are expected to be offered to centrists like Gilles de Robien, who rallied to Mr. Sarkozy in the presidential election.
Others are earmarked for women, since Mr. Sarkozy insists on some measure of "gender parity." The main question mark, however, is about which members of the left are given jobs.
In between the two presidential ballots (April 22 and May 6), Mr. Sarkozy hinted at an "enlarged presidential majority" that would include nonconservatives. Some were seen last week stepping in or out of the presidentelect's office on Rue Saint-Dominique, in the Seventh District of Paris.
Figures like Eric Besson, a former aide to Ségolène Royal who abruptly deserted her for Mr. Sarkozy during the campaign, and Claude Allègre, a former no-nonsense minister of education, came as no surprise. More unlikely was the appearance of Anne Lauvergeon, a former aide to Mitterrand and now the chair of Areva, the French nuclear-energy company — who was offered, and then declined, the Ministry of Industry.
But the character who raised most eyebrows was Hubert Védrine, chief of staff for a socialist president, François Mitterrand, and foreign minister between 1997 and 2002.
Last Thursday, unconfirmed reports suggested that Mr. Sarkozy wanted Mr. Védrine to become foreign minister again — a position that he had denied to Ms. Alliot-Marie.
On Friday morning, Mr. Védrine was spotted leaving Mr. Sarkozy's office and confided to the press that he was "not quite sure" about the proposal.
Many Sarkozy supporters expressed their dismay at the wooing of Mr. Védrine, for he is not just a socialist but stands for everything in world affairs that Mr. Sarkozy is supposed to be against: He is anti-American, anti-Zionist, and he favors conciliatory moves toward rogue states and terrorist organizations. Patrick Devedjian, a UMP member of the National Assembly and one of Mr. Sarkozy's closest political friends, dryly observed that "one does not enter the Cabinet unless one fully endorses the president's platform." Others contended that Mr. Védrine had just been offered an adviser's position, roughly the equivalent of being an American National Security Council chairman.
But why was such a contestable figure approached? The answer is that some of Mr. Sarkozy's aides, including David Martinon, have urged the conservative leader to return to the Gaullist fold, if only to assuage what they believe to be "anti-American French public opinion." Bringing back Mr. Védrine to the Quai d'Orsay would be a symbolic gesture to appease such sentiments.
Yesterday, unconfirmed reports surfaced suggesting that Mr. Védrine was being groomed for the Ministry of Justice and that another socialist, Bernard Kouchner, the founder of the aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières and a former U.N. high commissionner in Kosovo, was being offered the foreign affairs portfolio.
© Michel Gurfinkiel & The New York Sun, 2007