Chirac authorises Raffarin to form new French government

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Chirac authorises Raffarin to form new French government

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Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin handed in his resignation to Jacques Chirac here on Tuesday. The president accepted the resignation, but reappointed Raffarin to the post of prime minister and authorised him to form a new government, the Elysee Palace reports. Its composition is to be announced on Wednesday and the cabinet's first meeting will be held on Friday morning.

Raffarin made no statements for the press after his meeting with the president on the probable changes within the cabinet. However, political analysts share the view that there are bound to be substantial changes.

Jacques Chirac was confronted with the need to make such changes after the biggest-ever defeat of the right-wing forces during the regional elections. Their second round was held on Sunday and has altered the country's political landscape, since the centre-right forces have lost control over all the regional councils of continental France, except Alsace.

The Socialist Party-led left-wing forces had polled 50.36 percent of the votes, the ruling Union for the Popular Movement Party (UMP) and its allies �C 36.98 percent, and the right-wing National Front �C 12.54 percent. The turnout was unusually high �C 65 percent, which testifies to the electorate's determination to flash a signal to the country's political class.

Therefore, there is now a new situation in France, where the centre-right forces now wield the majority in parliament, while the leftists are in control of the local authorities at the level of regional councils.

The setback of the centre-right forces was a body blow for the Raffarin government. The returns of the elections prove his failure to rally the country's public opinion to cope with the existing extremely difficult social and economic problems. Moreover, 46 percent of the electorate objected to the reforms during the exit polls.

In any case, President Jacques Chirac and the new French government is to cope with a most difficult dilemma: France, which had put off the reforms to better days over the past three decades, definitely needs to be reformed, but the majority of the French population are against any changes.

In the meantime, the Elysee Palace has announced the postponement of the French president's working visit to Moscow to April 3. It was previously scheduled for April 1-2. The visit was put off due to the formation of the country's new government. Its first meeting, which will be held on Friday, is to be chaired by Jacques Chirac.

Source: agencies

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