The French Prime Minister, François Fillon, resigned yesterday which will allow President Nicolas Sarkozy to reshuffle his cabinet. 
The resignation took place weeks after the French parliament passed controversial pension reform. France 3 television's senior foreign political analyst, Christian Mallard, said "Fillon's resignation gives Sarkozy the opportunity to shake up the current leadership of some ministries." 
However Mallard, along with many others believe that it is very possible that Sarkozy will reinstate Fillon and that the Prime Minister resigned so that Sarkozy could switch some of his ministers in order to gain conservative support in the 2012 general elections. Earlier yesterday Sarkozy and Fillon were engaged in a meeting and according to President Sarkoy's office, "[t]he president has accepted this resignation."  
The resignation might also see a reduction from 24 ministers to 16 according to Mallard. 

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!
Share this: 






This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon resigns