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France announces new gov’t lineup

17 May 2012 04:44 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. France’s Secretary-General of the Elysee Palace Pierre-Rene Lemas on Wednesday unveiled Francois Hollande’s new government, a day after the socialist French president sworn in at the Elysee Palace, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The list name included 34 ministers, of which 17 were female. Hollande made an electoral promise to have as many women as men in his government.

Absent from the lineup was French Socialist Party head Martine Aubry, who had been widely expected to become the new prime minister.

"He (Hollande) told me he had chosen Jean-Marc Ayrault. We agreed that, in this configuration, my presence in the government would have no meaning," Aubry told the daily Le Monde.

Laurent Fabius, former prime minister in 1984 under former Socialist president Francois Mitterrand and finance minister for ex-prime minister Lionel Jospin in 2000-2002, took over foreign affairs from the outgoing Alain Juppe.

Manuel Valls, one of the new president’s strongest allies, took charge of interior affairs, and Jean-Yves Le Drian, a socialist deputy, was nominated defense minister.

A graduate of the elite ENA school for civil servants and with good command of English, Pierre Moscovici got the heavyweight job at the economy ministry in a challanging period of spiraling crisis. Michel Sapin, another socialist veteran was named labor minister.

The 49-year-old Arnaud Montebourg, a left-wing critic of globalization, took his place to lead production recovery ministry, while Stephane Le Foll, Hollande’s manager primary election campaign, was named as agriculture minister.

Hollande had chosen Christine Taubira as justice minister and Cecile Duflot, general secretary of the Greens party, minister of territorial equality.

Also in the cabinet was Aurelie Filipetti as culture minister, while Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, 34, got the post of defending women’s rights and government’s spokeswoman.

Wednesday’s transitional cabinet could be changed depending on parliamentary elections’s results next month.

The new cabinet is scheduled to hold its first meeting on Thursday afternoon.