Jean-Pierre Raffarin (photo: senat.fr)

 The French leader announced Mr. Raffarin's nomination shortly after accepting the resignation of Lionel Jospin. The Socialist prime minister announced his intention to withdraw from politics after a surprise second place showing by far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of voting April 21 eliminated him from Sunday's presidential run-off.

 The 53-year-old Mr. Raffarin is expected to lead the government at least until next month's parliamentary election. Mr. Raffarin is a member of the free market Liberal Democracy Party which backs Mr. Chirac's Rally for the Republic party in parliament. As a known advocate of opening French markets to freer trade, Mr. Raffarin is expected to pursue creation of a broad center-right coalition that would back Mr. Chirac after the June elections.

 On Sunday, Mr. Chirac easily won re-election to a five-year term, defeating Mr. Le Pen, 82-18 percent. Mr. Le Pen, a 73-year-old former paratrooper, scored a major political upset in the first round of voting by qualifying for the run-off, behind President Chirac but ahead of Mr. Jospin.

 Analysts say voters' dislike of Mr. Le Pen helped boost turnout to 79 percent, almost 10 percentage points higher than in the first round two weeks ago.

 World leaders hailed Mr. Chirac's resounding victory and the defeat of Mr. Le Pen, who had run on an anti-immigration and anti-European Union platform.
 
 

Some information for this report provided by AP and AFP.

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