François Fillon, the new French Prime Minister, starts work at the head of a politically mixed, gender-balanced Cabinet today as President Sarkozy flies off to sort out EADS, the troubled Franco-German parent company of Airbus.

Mr Fillon, 53, whose low-key style contrasts with that of the hyperactive Mr Sarkozy, marked his appointment yesterday in the manner of the new presidency. He reported to the Elysée Palace in shorts and the pair went for a run together.

Taking over from Dominique de Villepin, who dismissed him from his job as Education Minister in 2005, Mr Fillon promised to execute Mr Sarkozy’s plan for deep reform and to ensure an “eminent place for France in the world”. He added: “I will respect all the commitments we have made. That is the price of political renewal.”

When Mr Fillon teamed up with Mr Sarkozy in 2005, he spent two days at 10 Downing Street to study the methods of Tony Blair. The pair today appoint a slimmed-down Cabinet, which will be revolutionary in French terms because it includes six or seven women out of about fifteen portfolios and ministers from across the Left-Right political divide.

Chief among these is Dr Bernard Kouchner, 67, a left-wing human rights activist and co-founder of the Médecins-sans-Frontières organisation who served in the Cabinet of the late François Mitterrand. As Foreign Minister, the charismatic and unconventional Dr Kouchner will apply a human rights slant to foreign policy. This will be balanced by a newly created office of presidential security adviser, to be held by the French Ambassador to the United States.

Mr Fillon is a social-minded Gaullist with a consensual style, while Mr Sarkozy is an abrasive radical, but he shares the President’s belief that resistance to economic reform can be overcome. Colleagues joke that Mr Fillon, a patient negotiator, will be the adjective in Mr Sarkozy’s campaign slogan, “A calm break with the past”. He made his mark in 2003 by driving through pension reforms as Social Affairs Minister. He lost his subsequent education job after President Chirac took fright over protests against his revamp of the Baccalauréat school-leaving exam.

Mr Fillon’s role will differ from that of recent French prime ministers because Mr Sarkozy aims to supervise government closely through a beefed-up presidency rather than keeping a regal distance from running the country. This means that the Prime Minister will be more of a vice-president than chief executive.

In a typically hands-on gambit, Mr Sarkozy is meeting trade union leaders at the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse today to start trying to extract the EADS company from a malaise that threatens its survival and is bedevilling relations with Germany.

Mr Sarkozy promised to intervene in February when Airbus announced a rescue plan in which 10,000 jobs would be shed across Europe, most of them in France and Germany.

After meeting Chancellor Merkel in Berlin on Wednesday, Mr Sarkozy called Airbus his second European priority after relaunching the EU. He wants to revamp the dual national management structure that survived from the company’s time as a state-managed consortium and make Airbus a classical commercial operation. His options are limited because the French State holds only a 15 per cent stake and has no power of decision.

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