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 achieve democracy.
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 appointed defence minister three months ago in 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.
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.
