JEAN-PIERRE RAFFARIN was confirmed in his post as French prime minister Monday by President Jacques Chirac, after the president’s center-right party won a massive majority in parliamentary elections. “The president of the republic has entrusted Jean-Pierre Raffarin with the functions of prime minister again and asked him to form the new government,” Chirac’s office at the Elysee Palace said in a brief statement.Chirac first appointed the hitherto little known Raffarin May 6 to lead an interim government after his re-election at the expense of the previous prime minister, Socialist Lionel Jospin. The left lost its parliamentary majority in Sunday’s voting, ending five years of sharing power with the conservative Chirac.Raffarin, who earlier met Chirac to offer his resignation in keeping with electoral tradition, named a largely unchanged cabinet Tuesday. Raffarin, who has impressed many voters with his common touch, has promised to do all Chirac pledged in his presidential re-election campaign — crack down on crime, cut taxes, ease employment regulations and overhaul the pension system. The center-right surge Sunday ended the left’s five-year grip on the National Assembly and shut Le Pen’s anti-immigrant National Front out of the lower house altogether.

　　Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the new prime minister of France, is a 53-year-old moderate right-wing senator from the free-market Liberal Democracy party (DL). The hitherto obscure provincial politician has proved popular in just six weeks on the job and energetic action by his team has successfully diverted attention from the sleaze allegations that marred Chirac’s first term.In a reminder of those troubles, though, one casualty in the reshuffle was European Affairs Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres. He resigned over a probe into party funding and was replaced by Noelle Lenoir, known for her work on medical ethics.Sunday’s elections marked the latest step in the mainstream right’s advance across Western Europe, where similar parties have ousted leftist administrations in Italy, Portugal, Denmark and the Netherlands and may do so in Germany in September.Re-elected after mass street protests against Le Pen’s anti-immigrant policies, now Chirac has a strong hand to act.Not only does he control the president’s Elysee Palace and the government, he has a majority in the Senate upper house of parliament and conservative appointees run key institutions like the Constitutional Council, France’s top legal arbiter.Hailed by supporters as “the right man at the right time,” Raffarin and his common touch approach appear to have gone down well with voters tired of sclerotic rule by a Parisian elite.“Victorious, triumphant but above all legitimized. Jacques Chirac and Jean-Pierre Raffarin can enjoy the clear and coherent majority they asked the French to give them in order to carry out their pledges,” rejoiced conservative daily Le Figaro.But for others, Chirac owes his new power more to voters’ rejection of Le Pen and dislike of the left-right power-sharing cohabitation rather than a real popular embrace of his policies.“Jean-Pierre Raffarin is wrong when he claims Chirac’s policies won him his majority,” wrote Serge July in the left-leaning Liberation. “An overly triumphant Chirac camp risks destabilizing a situation that is already unstable.”Raffarin, who will formally unveil his government’s policy July 2 or 3, will have his work cut out from the start.It could start with a showdown in Madrid Thursday, where European Union finance ministers will want to know whether France is ready to balance its budget by 2004 to help the euro.

　　A public relations expert, Raffarin is seen as a figure who can appeal to a broad section of the right, while embodying a consensual approach that may also keep some left-wing voters on side. Although a minister for small businesses in the 1995-1997 government of Alain Juppe, Raffarin has nonetheless made much of his credentials as a grass-roots politician. His relatively low-profile has been seen as an advantage at a time when voters are applying pressure to bring political decision-making closer to the people. Raffarin stressed the need for French politicians to deliver, after the shocking success of far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the presidential elections, and following his coalition’s landslide in legislative elections he pledged to live up to voters’ demands. “We will assume our duty of action,” he told his supporters. “We have the obligation not to disappoint. We will act with firmness and with openness.”

　　The UMP coalition has put the issue of crime at the top of the election agenda, and Raffarin will have to make sure the government delivers on its sweeping promises. His government has also promised a series of tax cuts, and the prospect of a rebate before the end of this summer. There are some fears that the figures being flashed around are unrealistic, given France’s traditional commitment to proper funding of its public services. It is also thought that Raffarin’s government will take on the issue of pension reform, an issue which could spark protests on the streets of Paris if not handled with care. The last reforming government fell in 1997 soon after French people took to the streets to protest against reforms to the French welfare system, and in particular against suggestions that pension provision should be overhauled. Raffarin, analysts say, will have to proceed with caution in his new role.(SD-Agencies)