Nicolas Sarkozy cemented his reputation as France's new-broom President today when he unveiled a radically slimmed-down Cabinet packed with women and including both a maverick Socialist and a former prime minister convicted of corruption just three years ago.

As was widely flagged, Mr Sarkozy appointed Bernard Kouchner, a former Socialist health minister, as his new Foreign Minister - raising the hackles of Mr Kouchner's former colleagues on the Left.

But his biggest surprise was the decision to rehabilitate Alain Juppé, a former Gaullist prime minister under Jacques Chirac who returns as the effective No 2 in the Government at the helm of a new super-ministry in charge of environment, energy and sustainable development. Mr Juppé was convicted in 2004 of abusing public funds and handed a suspended jail sentence and ten-year ban on holding public office, reduced to one year on appeal.

Following up on Mr Sarkozy's pledge to make a clean break with France's political past, the Cabinet has been slimmed down from 30 ministers under Mr Chirac to just 15.

Seven of them are women - Mr Sarkozy’s election campaign spokeswoman Rachida Dati was given the justice portfolio and will play a key role in setting policing policy for the country's restive immigrant suburbs.

Mr Sarkozy has already named his Prime Minister, François Fillon, a close aide who is seen as a moderate conservative.

Most attention has focused on the appointment of Mr Kouchner, a 67-year-old doctor-turned-politician who backed Mr Sarkozy’s Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal, in the election campaign.

After serving as a doctor in Biafra in the late 1960s, Mr Kouchner first came to prominence when he founded the pioneering Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) in 1971, sending trained medics and nursing staff into war zones and disaster areas.

Serving as both minister for humanitarian affairs and then Health Minister in Socialist administrations of the 1990s, Mr Kouchner helped develop the concept of "humanitarian interventionism" before going on to serve as the first UN High Representative in Kosovo.

Described in one news agency profile today as a "headline-grabbing gastroenterologist", Mr Kouchner is one of France's most popular politicians. As Foreign Minister, he is expected to be equally high-profile and will seek to reinvigorate relations with the United States - although without descending into subservience.

Among other appointees, the former employment minister Jean-Louis Borloo becomes minister for the economy, finance and employment and will have to spearhead Mr Mr Sarkozy’s economic reform drive. Michèle Alliot-Marie, the former defence minister, was given the interior ministry.

Another high-profile female appointment was that of Christine Lagarde, a corporate lawyer once listed as one of the world’s most powerful women by Forbes magazine, to the post of agriculture minister. Ms Lagarde, 51, served under President Chirac as international trade minister.

In another sign of Sarkozy’s opening up to other parties, Hervé Morin, who was parliamentary leader of Francois Bayrou’s centrist UDF party, was named defence minister - allowing Mr Sarkozy to broaden his appeal into the centre ahead of parliamentary elections in June in which voters are expected to give him a clear majority.

The new government is expected to quickly roll out a raft of measures to cut taxes, keep trains running during strikes and relax France’s 35-hour working week.

Mr Fillon, whose wife is British, made his mark as a reformer as social affairs minister under Mr Chirac, from 2002 to 2004, when he overhauled France’s pension system, facing down million-strong street protests. After losing his post in a reshuffle, he threw all of his energy into building up the Sarkozy election machine.

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