President Nicolas Sarkozy promised his countrymen a break with the past, and he has not wasted time. The leaner, 15-member cabinet that Sarkozy introduced two days after he was sworn in last week is led by PM François Fillon, who is credited with reforming the pension system in the last government. The new foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Médecins sans Frontières who was awarded a Nobel Prize and who is a hugely popular figure on the French Left, is a global activist sympathetic to the US. Other members include a woman of Arab descent as justice minister, a one-time heir-apparent to ex-President Jacques Chirac at a new super-ministry for the Environment, a defector from the centrist party at Defence, and the woman who used to be defence minister as the country’s top cop at the Interior Ministry.

Sarkozy’s next hurdle is the Parliamentary elections in June, and polls indicate that he will take those by storm as well, which would give him a strong political launching pad. The new president also has signalled that he will be an active, hands-on boss on domestic, foreign and security affairs. The real tests lie ahead, of course. But Sarkozy has put together a team that exudes competence, diversity and energy. This is one French revolution that might be fun to watch.