FRENCH PRESIDENT FRANCOIS Hollande has recalled his former partner Segolene Royal from the political wilderness to join a new streamlined government, days after his Socialist Party suffered an election drubbing.

Sunday’s stinging setback in nationwide municipal elections prompted Hollande to sack former premier Jean-Marc Ayrault and replace him with tough-talking interior minister Manuel Valls.

The two wasted no time in radically reshaping the government, appointing two new faces in a cabinet of just 16 ministers, less than half the 38 in the previous line-up.

Royal, Hollande’s ex-partner and mother of his four children, was named ecology minister in a spectacular return to mainstream politics for the woman who lost the presidency to Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.

Royal is one of the Socialists’ biggest hitters but her inclusion in Hollande’s first cabinet was reportedly blocked because of hostility from Valerie Trierweiler, the president’s then girlfriend.

That obstacle has now been removed following Hollande’s separation from Trierweiler in January in the aftermath of the revelation of his affair with actress Julie Gayet.

Mammoth challenges

The new government faces an uphill struggle, with the tough task of bringing down the country’s jobless numbers which reached a record 3.34 million in February.

The ministers will have to deal with “an economic context that has deteriorated sharply”, said Frederic Dabi of the Ifop polling institute, with a public deficit that remains stubbornly high after 22 months of Socialist rule.

Growth, meanwhile, is almost non-existent and the exasperation of the French was reflected in Sunday’s municipal polls that saw the Socialists lose 155 towns and cities to the main opposition and far right.

Hollande has tasked Valls with implementing a package of pro-business policies known as the Responsibility Pact, which cuts taxes on firms that are widely viewed as hampering employment and growth, to be financed by spending cuts of 50 billion euros ($69 billion).

© AFP 2014

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