Posted on 04/19/2005 4:57:05 PM PDT by Alex Marko
The battle in the heart of the French government pits the tall, elegantly dressed poet-diplomat against the short, rumpled, self-described "bumpkin from the provinces."
Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin, a former foreign minister, started the fight on Sunday, suggesting in a radio interview that France might need a new prime minister (perhaps him?) regardless of whether French voters rejected a referendum on the European Union Constitution next month.
"You don't have to be a psychic, you just have to look around," Mr. De Villepin told Europe 1 radio. He also said, "We will need policies that are more pro-active, even bolder, even more socially aware."
He did not stop there, but made clear that he was available should the job of head of the French government come open. "All one's life one prepares oneself to takes on certain missions that are sometimes difficult, sometimes unpredictable," he said, adding, "After that it is destiny, it is history and it is those who are above us who decide."
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who started out in life as a wholesale coffee salesman from the Poitou-Charente region, usually ignores such verbal slings and arrows. This time, he decided to fight back.
"He went off track," Mr. Raffarin said of Mr. De Villepin in an interview on RTL radio today. "That happens a lot when you go too fast. And so, I am prime minister, responsible for maintaining unity, and so I brought him into line. Period. The incident is over."
Mr. Raffarin also assured listeners that there was "no crisis" in the government, adding that he could say "with the agreement of the president" that Mr. De Villepin had not been speaking on behalf of President Jacques Chirac.
Indeed, the mantra at the Elysee Palace is that the spat is nothing more than "a tempest in a glass of water." But that has not calmed the waters.
The battle has become nasty, even by French standards, with today's left-leaning newspaper Liberation showing both men, stern-faced and seated next to each other, under the headline, "Let the worst man win."
As former Prime Minister Alain Juppe said on his blog: "Stop shooting! In my great naïveté, I thought that when you were having a tough fight, it's better to stay together than trip each other. Sorry, I'm dreaming."
The duel between the two men underscores how edgy the political elite in France - particularly the Chirac government - has become as poll after poll indicates that the French people are poised to reject the European Union Constitution when the referendum takes place on May 29.
Mr. Chirac has expended enormous political capital on getting his people to embrace the treaty, calling it crucial both for the future of Europe and the strength of France.
But his participation in a televised debate last Thursday to promote the Constitution did little to win more yes votes. Fifty-one percent of the French said that Mr. Chirac's performance was not sufficiently convincing for them to support the Constitution, according to a CSA Opinion poll.
Liberation referred to Mr. Chirac's television appearance as "le flop," while a poll reported in the center-right Figaro today showed 55 percent of voters planned to vote against the treaty.
Mr. Raffarin's job has been rumored to be in jeopardy for some time.
In July 2003, his offhand remark that France would be headed for heaven if only it did not have Socialists, triggered cries of anger and outrage and even calls for Mr. Chirac to fire his loyal head of government.
Desperate to recover from a humiliating electoral defeat in regional elections in April of last year, Mr. Chirac turned his cabinet upside down, but contrary to some predictions, decided to keep Mr. Raffarin as prime minister.
Again last November, when Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy left government to head the center-right UMP party as a prelude to his campaign for the presidency in the 2007 election, Mr. Raffarin held on to his job.
Mr. De Villepin, meanwhile, has made no secret that he feels constrained in a job that requires him to do things like honor police officers and fine-tune immigration policy rather than travel the capitals of the world.
But Mr. Raffarin, who was so little-known when he was appointed prime minister in 2002 that fewer than half of those polled in an economic monthly said they knew who he was, is as modest as he is loyal and hard-working. It is those qualities that have helped him survive politically, despite consistently low ratings in opinion polls.
"I don't have an exaggerated ego," Mr. Raffarin said in the radio interview today. "I am a normal man."
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