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JEAN SAUVAGNARGUES, 59, Foreign Minister. Calm and smoothly professional, Sauvagnargues (pronounced sew-va-nyarg) should bring a sharp change in tone to French diplomacy. His predecessor, Michel Jobert, delighted in public jousting with Washington over oil and Middle East policy—a performance that Pompidou felt was necessary to please his restive Gaullist constituency.
Sauvagnargues's unexpected move from the French embassy in Bonn to the Quai d'Orsay was in itself a mild slap at the Gaullist orthodoxy. A wartime supporter of De Gaulle's, Sauvagnargues earned the general's disfavor later on, when he publicly allowed that France might want to encourage the continuance of the Atlantic Alliance. He was promptly banished to a long career of postings abroad, culminating in his appointment as Ambassador to West Germany in 1970.
Sauvagnargues is a confessed Germanophile who was very popular in Bonn. His return to grace suggests that Giscard is serious about getting European unity moving again around a friendly French-German axis (see box). As for France's relations with the U.S., Sauvagnargues in the recent past has claimed to be a convinced Gaullist in foreign policy matters. That means that he is skeptical about the future of European unity but feels France should encourage it as a useful device to fend off the weight of the superpowers.
Giscard made a point of making public a private warning that he had given to his newly named ministers. "We are here to change France, not to build our careers," he told them, adding that "you will be judged by the success or failure of your personal management." That was Giscard's way of announcing that the new president of France would be quick to shuffle his Cabinet if trouble arises, as it well could, given the country's economic uncertainties and Giscard's costly campaign promises to raise the pay and improve working conditions for millions of workers. But having begun to change France's political style in a personal way, Giscard runs the risk of being personally blamed if and when some of his changes go awry.