"It is your sovereign decision, and I take note."

With these somber words Jack acknowledged the French electorate's repudiation of his pet constitution, his government, and his personal charms. Jack got busy and yesterday showed the French NONs exactly the note he had taken.

Meet the new government -- good for 100 days. Well, we can't introduce the complete government card as the government is not yet fully formed. But here are the headliners:

Prime Minister: Dominique Marie François René Galouzeau de Villepin

As the NON vote is widely seen as a rejection of the elites of the political class, Jack replaced the hapless M. Raffarin with a prince from that very class. And just so the message is not lost on the NONs, Dom sports a name guzzied up with the "duh" of nobility (a pretension known as redorer son blason), a distinction shared with the author of the graceless constitution, Giscard d'Estaing.

Dom first came to our attention as the "veto first, vote later" spoiler of the follow-up resolution to UNSCR 1441.

Dom, an amatuer belletrist, has penned several books of turgid mazy prose. Here is a sampling of the quality of thought from his Le Cri de la Gargouille:

France is a large old oak tree, full of an everlasting sap. It is a tree that has thrived and spread for thousands of years in a unique soil, that has been both hospitable and open to all kinds of invasions, whose population is both diverse and yet homogeneous, whose spirit tends to be both rigorous and aesthetically inclined. Power, the state and authority form the main forest, from which an expansive foliage has developed. But tree surgeons have sprung up at the foot of the tree and are working away at the trunk, while mistletoe proliferates and risks strangling the tree that feeds it. From branch to branch, the ostentatious and harmful influence of the aristocracy has spread to all levels of society. It has ruined the idea of equality, perverted that of solidarity, ensnared liberties and discredited the image of the elected, encouraged conservatism and immobility to the detriment of anything that speaks of audacity and action; it has, finally, soured the French dream, that of a France capable of transcending itself and of surprising the world.

Dom's mix of earnestness, of lexical strain, and metastasizing banality is at once hilarious and embarrassing, not unlike sitting front row center at a recital where a singer with no musical talent or range assays Der Holle Rache.

Now another run-away trope:

A people always has need of an ideal, of moral improvement, of sharing and exchange. The French aspire to re-establish a state that will guarantee their safety but, in the face of modern loss, they crave most of all a sense of nation. They listen, proud of their blessings, to revive their history of epic collective adventures, without renouncing a language steeped in the unknown and the new, the near and the far, alive in the Caribbean in memories of galleons and plantations, coloured with the spices and flavours of the Orient, shrunken by the sun and the dryness of Africa where, in the vast expanses, the man free of baggage walks along the horizon, eating the dust and the sky, forever watching out with his black eyes for the call of the god within himself.

To which we say, "Huh?" And this:

There is a magic, a mysterious power, in certain places. The Elysee, that "enchanted garden" of mythology where the souls of heroes gather, bears the footprints of the protective figures of its past. Here more than anywhere, where heritage and inspiration mingle in the maze of corridors, is it possible to dream up new acts of alchemy

Yes, well, such is the quality of mind propping up the new PM. Read more.

Mystery Minister: Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bosca ("Sarko")

Jack also took note of the NONs' dread of economic "liberalsim", and responded by inviting -- dans un esprit de rassemblement -- the foremost French politician of economic liberalism, Nicolas Sarközy, to re-join his government as Minister of State.

Popularity being a wasting asset in politics, no report on M. Sarközy omits the epithet "popular". Though much of this popularity, we hazard, is attributable to M. Sarkozy being somebody, anybody, other than Jack. Or M. Raffarin.

M. Sarközy is a Député (Hauts de Seine) in the l'Assemblée nationale and the President of l’Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP). He is also ambitious. And has written books, though we are not competent to comment on them in the original.

The press took note of Jack's note-taking:

Libération:

THE PRESIDENT'S CRUTCHES

El Pais:

The appointment of Dominique de Villepin seems to be neither the most daring nor the best option in moments of crisis in France and the EU.

Les Echos:

Dominique de Villepin has been propelled to the premiership even though he has never been anointed by popular vote and even though many MPs are wary of him. This is his great weakness.

[May 31, 2005 (AP) - Just last week, in thinly veiled criticism, Sarkozy said only people who have held elected office "have the right to speak in the name of France."]

Ouest-France:

Instead of two cohabiting, the French executive branch is preparing to do it with three!

UPDATE 06.02.05: Erik over at ¡No Pasarán! compiles a brief but telling profile on France's new prime minister, Dominique Marie François René Galouzeau de Villepin. Warning: Rated R for unpoetical cacemphaton.

Wretchard at the Belmont Club reports on the market response to Dom.

Scott Ott at Scrappleface writes up his mix of facts and funny wherein Dom proposes changes to the constitution sure to win over the French.

here's a comment, put this site out of its misery.
there's no one here. end it.

here's a comment.
end this...

And yet here is Mr. Pulaski, bravely posting -- twice within 60" -- out of sight in a dated thread. And you can find him here also. So the nobody who is here appears to be none other than Mr. Pulaski himself. Talking to himself it would seem.

Here's a comment, Mr. Pulaski, post intelligently.

DGB