French finance ministry needs stability after crisis

After a quick succession of finance ministers, France needs a period of stability at the helm if the eurozone's second-largest economy is to produce the robust growth and jobs voters demand, lawmakers said yesterday.

Outgoing France Telecom chief Thierry Breton spent his first weekend in his new post as the country's finance minister being briefed by top civil servants ahead of today's formal handover.

The mop-haired former maths teacher, appointed late on Friday, stopped by the ministry to pick up documents on Saturday and returned to its imposing Bercy offices in eastern Paris yesterday for more briefings.

Mr Breton's weekend activity signalled a desire to transfer his hands-on management style from France Telecom to Bercy, where he formally takes over from Herve Gaymard at midday today.

Mr Gaymard's three-month tenure was ended by a scandal over the high cost of his luxury state-paid apartment. A poll yesterday showed the scandal had "shocked" 66 per cent of voters.

Senior parliamentarians called for Mr Breton to be given time to prove himself, preferably until elections due in 2007.

"He's the seventh minister in six years, so I hope he'll serve right through because that is becoming a concern," said Gilles Carrez, a leading light on the National Assembly's budget committee.

Mr Breton is the ninth finance minister to serve under President Jacques Chirac, raising doubts about the credibility of economic management in the eurozone's second-largest economy.

His priority will be to create the conditions in which the 'Yes' vote in a nationwide referendum on the EU constitution can flourish: jobs, robust growth and higher living standards.

Mr Chirac has staked much political capital on a victory for the 'Yes' camp, but with the vote expected around mid-year, the sometime sci-fi writer Breton has little time to script a rise in employment and living standards.

A former deputy to Jean-Pierre Raffarin when the current prime minister was a little-known regional leader, Mr Breton has better political antennae than Francis Mer, the hapless former steel baron dismissed as finance minister last March. And rescuing a string of troubled state-owned concerns honed the media skills his immediate predecessor cruelly lacked.

"A major part of his credibility within the government and abroad, will be his ability to continue reducing public deficits and present a clear fiscal strategy that can develop over the medium-term," said Philippe Marini, a senior Senate budget committee member.

Mr Carrez said Mr Breton must be given free rein to control state spending as France struggles to pull its public deficit below the ceiling of three per cent of GDP. France has been a deficit deadbeat since 2002.

In a clear effort to avoid another Mr Gaymard fiasco, aides said father-of-three Mr Breton will continue to live in his private home in the 14th arrondissement in Paris. He will also forgo any golden handshake from France Telecom and take a pay cut of around 90 per cent.