Paris - Veteran politician Alain Juppe was appointed France's foreign minister on Sunday after Michele Alliot-Marie quit over a series of gaffes that damaged the government at a crucial time for relations with North Africa.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose poor ratings have been dragged lower by a storm of criticism of Alliot-Marie, said uprisings sweeping through North African states meant a new approach was needed to help them build stable democracies.
Juppe will be given the job of restoring France's diplomatic credibility and ensuring it takes the right approach to the pro-democracy movement, especially in former colonies where the French elite has had close ties with authoritarian rulers.
“In this way the country's key ministries will be prepared to confront the events ahead, the outcome of which nobody can predict,” Sarkozy said in a brief televised address.
Alliot-Marie was forced out following a hail of criticism from opposition parties and the media over a series of blunders in her handling of the revolt in Tunisia.
Her successor Juppe was brought into Sarkozy's team as defence minister in a November reshuffle. It marked a comeback for a conservative heavyweight who served as foreign minister and prime minister in the 1990s but was sidelined for several years over his role in a party financing scandal.
His political standing survived that scandal and he will now become one of the most influential figures in the government, likely to overshadow the quiet Prime Minister Francois Fillon.
Alliot-Marie, in the job only since November, presented her resignation to Sarkozy in a hand-delivered letter which alleged there was a political and media campaign against her.
“For the last few weeks I have been the target of political and media attacks that have spread untruths and confusion in order to create suspicion,” she wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.
“I ask you to accept my resignation,” the letter said.
The reshuffle was announced on the eve of a meeting in Geneva between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other foreign ministers to discuss the crisis in Libya.
In two weeks Paris hosts a gathering of Group of Eight foreign ministers which will be dominated by Libya and how the world should handle further unrest in North Africa.
Sarkozy said in his speech European leaders needed to be vigilant to the risk of the unrest sparking uncontrolled migration and new terrorism threats on their doorstep. - Reuters