France's new foreign minister

On Bernard Kouchner, founder of Medicenes Sans Frontiers (Doctors without Borders - and yes, I do know the French name is supposed to have accents but I can't figure out how to do that). Here's a brief profile of the man appointed by Nicolas Sarkozy, the new French president.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Kouchner was one of the few in France’s political elite to justify military intervention against Saddam Hussein — on humanitarian grounds, not because Iraq might be seeking weapons of mass destruction. “It was a question of overthrowing an evil dictator, and it was right to intervene,” Mr. Kouchner said in 2004.

He has said that Turkey is part of Europe and deserves to join the European Union; Mr. Sarkozy says that Turkey is part of Asia, not Europe, and should never become a member.

Mr. Kouchner appears to support the maintenance of a strong international — and French — presence in Afghanistan to bring stability to the country; Mr. Sarkozy has promised that French troops will not stay there forever.

“On Turkey, the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the third world and Africa, we’re not close,” Mr. Kouchner acknowledged in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “I’m against his idea of selective immigration. On other issues — the Middle East, on the need for an alliance with America, on the role of France in Europe — we’re not so far apart."

As Richard C. Holbrooke, the former American ambassador to the U.N. told the Times: “It’s an amazing appointment, a stunning event in French foreign policy,” said Mr. Holbrooke, who the Times describes 'as one of the new foreign minister's closest friends. “He’s motivated by an antitotalitarian drive whether he sees injustice from the left or the right. It will be very positive for U.S.-French relations, because he does not come with a visceral anger towards the American ‘hyperpower.’”