PARIS--France's centrist President Emmanuel Macron gave ministerial jobs to conservatives, socialists and newcomers to politics on Wednesday, appointing an unprecedented all-stripes cabinet to bridge traditional divides and broaden his support.
Macron's government is a direct challenge to established parties, whose diehards criticised the appointments ahead of mid-June parliamentary elections that will be key to the new president's capacity to carry out reforms and to the future of those traditional alignments.
The 39-year old president, who set up his own party just over a year ago and wants to smash the left-right divide, had already made conservative Edouard Philippe his prime minister earlier in the week. Posting on Twitter a picture of the pair in a gilded room of the Elysee presidential palace, Macron called Philippe "the prime minister of a government of unity and renewal to change France."
Philippe told a Reuters photographer: "I have a lot of courage. I will also need luck."
Macron's pick for the crucial economy and finance ministry was Bruno Le Maire, a pro-European free-marketeer and a heavyweight from Philippe's The Republicans (LR) party.
"We have to deliver, put aside those little politicians' quarrels, those sectarian divisions, which lead us nowhere... making space for debate, for rapid and constructive decisions," Le Maire said as he took over his job. "That's what the majority of our citizens want today, and our responsibility is immense."
Gerard Collomb, the veteran Socialist party mayor of Lyon who was one of the first in his party to back Macron, was named interior minister. Jean-Yves Le Drian, outgoing Socialist defence minister and a close friend of ex-President Francois Hollande, became foreign minister and minister for Europe.
"This is a French government like no other," said Ifop analyst Frederic Dabi. "That can only shake up the system and bother The Republicans, in particular."
The Republicans, who are biggest challenge to Macron's start-up Republic on the Move party in the legislative elections but lag behind it in opinion polls, accused the new president of trying to muddle the political debate. "The main objective of this provisional government is to blur the lines and confuse the French people in the parliamentary election campaign," Republicans secretary-general Bernard Accoyer said in a statement, adding that those who joined the government no longer belonged to the party.
The Socialist party labelled the lineup a right-wing government that would "break up public services" and contained too many seasoned veterans to bring any real renewal.
