Hey! It's the old no-impulse government!

For those of us who worried that Jack was going to burden us with more unisex French names to sort out, well, he and Dom have thoughtfully done little more than reshuffle the old familiar names.

Jack has slimmed down his "new impulse" government* to a lissome 32-member cabinet, a dozen members less than the previous no-impulse government. (By way of comparison, America, a country with 5x the people and 18x the geography, makes do with a cabinet, counting the president and vice presidnet, of 17 members.)

Of course you can't please everybody.

ALL EYES ON SARKOZY AS NEW FRENCH GOVERNMENT KICKS OFF

PARIS, June 3 (AFP) - Chirac dismissed his foreign minister Michel Barnier after Sunday's overwhelming "no" vote to the EU treaty, replacing him with former health minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, a newcomer to the world of global affairs.

But many key ministers stayed in place, including Defence Minister Michele [Nuke'Em] Alliot-Marie, Finance Minister Thierry Breton and Social Cohesion Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, prompting scepticism from the press and jeers from the left.

"Nine new ministers is not exactly a clean sweep," the financial daily La Tribune said in a commentary.

In an editorial entitled "Plastering over", Liberation lashed out:" In the menage-a-trois that is now ruling the country, Nicolas Sarkozy is the one wearing the pants. Never has a minister been so powerful."

In a major climb-down for Chirac, the president - whose confidence rating has plummeted to an all-time low of 24 percent - allowed his arch-rival Sarkozy to remain as head of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).

The new team also earned bitter remarks from the outgoing Barnier, who lashed out at the "beheading" of his ex-ministry's team, and from axed education minister Francois Fillon.

Fillon told Le Monde that by pushing him out of the government, Chirac and Villepin had made him "a campaign director ahead of time" for Sarkozy's 2007 presidential bid.

M. Barnier oversaw a ministry that only last month asserted the delusion of French primacy in America's affections over all nations:

[O]ne gleeful French diplomat expressed the view to Libération that 'in the final reckoning, it is us who have won the place Tony Blair dreamed of after agreeing to the war in Iraq: that of Europe's privileged partner with the United States, capable of influencing its decisions.'

Clearly he is better gone than re-tooled.

Also gone is M. Perben. He approved the elevated status of brute animal sentience in law, whereas unborn French children have no legal existence. Better suited for dog-catcher, not Garde des Sceaux. He is best gone.

* "J'ai décidé de donner une nouvelle impulsion à la politique de la France." Jack, Palais de l'Elysée, Paris, le mardi 31 mai 2005.