Via the NYT: French President Appoints Villepin as New Prime Minister

President Jacques Chirac of France fired his loyal, long-suffering prime minister today, a direct response to the country’s decisive rejection of a referendum on the constitution for Europe that was as much as rejection of his 10-year presidency.

In announcing the resignation of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Elysée Palace named Interior Minister and former Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin as his replacement.

The choice of Mr. de Villepin, 51, a well-born, high-octane former career diplomat who has never held elected office and writes poetry in his spare time, means that Mr. Chirac has no intention of abandoning his vision of a grand and glorious France with a unique leadership mission in the world.

Ok, not tha there is anything wrong with writing poetry in one’s spare time, but it is rather amusing that given the stereotypical views that Americans have of the French that that would be the factoid that the NYT would choose to put in the second paragraph. There is also something quite European about noting that Villepin is “well-born.”

Of course, we will all remember Villepin as France’s Foriegn Minister durig the lead-up to the Iraq war.

I do not know enough about French politics to undertand the implications of this move, although if the following assessment is correct, it strikes as as an odd one given Chirac’s current situation:

Mr. de Villepin is not liked by much of the French political establishment, including deputies in Parliament who consider him distant from the people and complain that he does not bother to consult them.

In regards to the “no” vote itself, this is interesting:

On Monday, the shock waves of France’s rejection of a constitution for Europe reverberated throughout the Continent, with Britain suggesting that it might cancel its own popular vote on the document and the naysayers in the Netherlands gaining even more confidence that a no vote will prevail in a referendum there on Wednesday.