Stop the press: We have an old-new hyper PM

The press huddle materialized outside the imposing baroque gates of the Elysée Palace – the French presidential residence – Saturday morning under the pelting rain. By Monday morning, the fruits of all those shivering hours were ready for consumption – with the café and croissants – at breakfast tables across France.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s much-awaited cabinet reshuffle was finally announced in a Sunday prime-time special, setting the French media into a late-night frenzy of punditry and spin.

Sarkozy, who has been trailing in opinion polls, was expected to do what most French presidents confronting public displeasure invariably do: sack the prime minister and reshuffle the cabinet.

‘Fillon retains Sarkozy’ – and not the other way around

Sarkozy of course had done much less than what is expected of unpopular presidents: he did NOT sack his prime minister, the far more popular, François Fillon.

PROFILE FRANCE François Fillon: the untouchable Prime Minister

Not only did Fillon escape expected boot, the low-key, but dependable prime minister emerged from Sunday’s reshuffle looking stronger than ever, a development noted in most French headlines.

“Fillon garde Sarkozy” – Fillon retains Sarkozy – quipped the left-leaning Libération, turning the power tables upside down.

“Fillon, l’hyper Premier minister” – Fillon, the hyper prime minister – said the headline of La Tribune, a business daily. Sarkozy of course is well known in French and international policy circles as the hyper president. Now the French are getting used to a hyper number two.

Le Figaro, the country’s leading centre-right daily, opted for the more staid headline, “Sarkozy-Fillon: la nouvelle étape” – Sarkozy-Fillon: The next step. The lead piece goes on to note that retaining Fillon makes sense since the “quiet man of French politics” is popular and he’s the right person to do the job as France confronts massive economic problems.

The newspaper’s next eight pages went on to carefully parse the implications of the latest reshuffle. They were dominated of course by Fillon’s ascendance. “How François Fillon won the battle” reads the full-page story on Le Figaro’s page two. Page three extends the piece with an article on the political demise of Jean-Louis Borloo, the former energy minister who once coveted the prime minister’s post, but refused a lesser position in the new government.

France’s lively, left-leaning press though was not impressed with the latest round of political chess.

“Rien, c’est rien,” – nothing, this is nothing – scoffed a senior editor of popular left-wing newspaper Libération, speaking on French television minutes after Sarkozy’s chief of staff Claude Gueant made the Sunday primetime announcement. “A reshuffle for nothing,” huffed a former Socialist minister, belittling the ruling UMP party’s latest window dressing.

The country’s lively left and extreme left-leaning press was having a field day: “La mascarade,” – screamed the extreme left daily L’Humanité

Nudging his cabinet to the right with an eye on 2012

While the French press was parsing every piece of the new political jigsaw, the international press – notably the English-language media – made a cursory nod to what in the end looked like an internal durbar drama of little geopolitical import.

Indepth FRANCE Can the cabinet reshuffle save President Sarkozy?

“Premier remains at French helm,” read a page three story of the Paris-based, New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune with a subhead, “Sarkozy reappoints Fillon in a shuffle that nudges his cabinet to the right”.

The article goes on to note that, “Sarkozy’s initial ‘opening’ to the left, which saw him bringing prominent Socialists like (former Foreign Minister) Bernard Kouchner and (former Urban Affairs Minister) Fadela Amara into government, appears to be over. Instead, Mr. Sarkozy brought in some prominent supporters of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, including Alain Juppé, a former prime minister, as defense minister.”

Across the Channel, the left-leaning British daily, the Guardian, summarized the weekend’s non-news with a cutting, “But in the end Sarkozy risked appearing weak by keeping Fillon as prime minister in what amounted to a limited reshuffle despite the months of drama.”

In France, the latest reshuffle is being examined in the light of the upcoming 2012 presidential poll, with some papers questioning if a disgruntled Borloo could split the right-wing vote or even the ruling UMP party.

In the international media, it seems, the import of the 2012 French presidential poll will have to wait until the official campaign season kicks in.