FRANCE: An aristocratic intellectual who has never been elected to public office would seem a strange choice of prime minister for a divided country that only three days ago signalled its rejection of the elite by rejecting the European Constitutional Treaty.
But the French president has monarchical powers, and neither Jacques Chirac's wife nor his trusted advisers were able to dissuade him from appointing his "favourite son", Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin, as prime minister yesterday.
When Villepin was secretary general of the Élysée from 1995 until 2002, Mrs Chirac nicknamed him 'Nero' because he liked to play with fire, metaphorically speaking. The dissolution of the National Assembly in 1997 - a disaster for Chirac and the right - was Villepin's idea.
The former prime minister Alain Juppé, a close ally of Chirac and Villepin, may have been prescient when he allegedly predicted this week that with Villepin in the prime minister's office, "in the crisis situation we're in, we'll have all France in the streets in a few months".
Villepin cut a handsome figure, stepping out at the Matignon Palace yesterday for the transfer of power. Conveying the gravity of the moment, he did not smile. Forty-five minutes later, he re-emerged with Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who after three long-suffering years, became the scapegoat for France's No vote.
They made an odd pair; the elegant Villepin towering over the squat Raffarin. Chirac chose Raffarin three years ago for his simple, provincial ways, thinking he would appeal to the common people. Raffarin's popularity crashed with the reform of the pension system in 2003 and never recovered from that summer's lethal heat wave. "I know the president of the Republic can rely on his fidelity," Mr Raffarin said. "Here and now, the thread of loyalty has not been broken."
Though Villepin is the antithesis of Raffarin, he may be no more acceptable to the millions of French voters who want to punish Jacques Chirac for failing to heal France's "social fracture".
Villepin's main qualification for Matignon was his absolute loyalty to Chirac for 25 years. Now 51, Villepin joined Chirac's RPR party in 1977. As a French diplomat in Washington during the Mitterrand years, he secretly organised Chirac's trips to the US, arranging meetings with US congressmen in his home.
When most of the French right sided with Chirac's rival Édouard Balladur in 1995, Villepin led Chirac's battle for survival.
Balladur says Villepin "lacks political sense, common sense too". Chirac calls him, "my best commando leader". That is how Villepin sees himself. "Action is the only solution," he says.
Villepin's father, Xavier, now a senator, was the director of a French company abroad, and Villepin grew up in Rabat, Caracas, and Washington.
He speaks fluent English and Spanish, and graduated from the snobbish École Nationale de l'Administration. He has published seven books, most recently an 823-page essay on poetry that is more difficult to read than the constitutional treaty.
But Villepin's claim to fame - and the only thing that endears him to the French left - is the speech he made as France's foreign minister before the UN on February 14th, 2003. In a passionate plea on behalf of "an old country, France . . . who says this to you today, who has known wars, occupation, barbarity . . ." he pleaded with the US not to invade Iraq. His appointment is not likely to improve Paris's rocky relations with Washington. Villepin believes the French are "a people not like others" and is prone to de Gaulle-like lyricism about French grandeur. "From Guadalquivir to Patagonia to far-east Asia, the peoples of the world are watching us," he said during the referendum campaign.
At a rally, he called France "the country who carried the torch of liberty, who brought light to the people of the world". Le Monde calls him "a poet in the corridors of power". Villepin is passionate about ideas, but will this highly privileged Parisian have a clue how to handle almost 2.5 million unemployed Frenchmen and a €1,067 billion public debt?
In his general policy speech before the National Assembly on June 7th, Villepin is expected to announce socialist-like initiatives: a public works programme that could perpetuate France's noncompliance with the EU Stability Pact, and a job creation scheme for young people.
Nicolas Sarkozy, who also wanted the job, is expected to be appointed interior minister and No 2 in the new government. The Villepin-Sarkozy duo is an explosion waiting to happen. From 2002 until 2004, Sarkozy shone at the interior ministry, where Villepin was lacklustre for the past year. The two rivals clashed publicly on major issues, including affirmative action, secularism and immigration quotas.