THE WAVE of political upheaval set off by the Arab revolts reached Paris yesterday when French foreign minister Michèle Alliot-Marie resigned over her handling of events in Tunisia.
The veteran Ms Alliot-Marie, who has been at the foreign ministry for just three months, resigned shortly before President Nicolas Sarkozy made a television address to announce a partial reshuffle of his cabinet. She is to be replaced by former prime minister Alain Juppé, who held the foreign portfolio for two years in the 1990s.
Ms Alliot-Marie’s departure had appeared inevitable since late last week, her clumsy handling of events in north Africa having come to symbolise a malaise in French diplomacy. The minister was lampooned for offering the know-how of France’s security forces to Tunisia just days before former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled the country. She was further damaged by revelations that, as the protests raged in the former French protectorate in late December, she travelled across Tunisia on a jet belonging to a local businessman with alleged links to the authoritarian regime.
In her resignation letter, Ms Alliot-Marie denied any wrongdoing and said she had been the target of political and media attacks aimed at creating “suspicion” and “untruths” about her. She complained about “harassment” of her family by “certain media” and said some had sought to convey the impression that she had weakened French diplomacy.
Mr Sarkozy had come under pressure to replace Ms Alliot-Marie in recent days, with figures from her own party pointedly declining to support their colleague. “It’s up to the relevant authorities to draw the consequences if they wish to,” said Mr Juppé on Thursday, when asked whether she should go.
Mr Sarkozy last night named Gérard Longuet, the ruling UMP party’s leader in the senate, as Mr Juppé’s replacement at the defence ministry. In a surprise move, he also appointed his chief of staff and close collaborator Claude Guéant as interior minister. He replaces Brice Hortefeux, who becomes a presidential adviser.
Reflecting the wider sense of disarray in French diplomacy, a group of serving and retired diplomats published a scathing attack on Mr Sarkozy’s foreign policy this week, blaming an “amateurish” and “impulsive” approach for France having lost its voice on the global stage.
