He's a TV personality with a trademark booming voice, a writer, film-maker and gay activist who is not only an expert on world monarchy but part of the closest thing the French republic has to a royal family: the Mitterrand clan.
Frédéric Mitterrand, the nephew of the late socialist president François Mitterrand, has been appointed France's culture minister in a highly symbolic move by Nicolas Sarkozy.
The unashamedly rightwing French president has a deliberate strategy of poaching high-profile personalities from the left. Sarkozy's "rainbow cabinet" of all political colours, including the leftwing foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, was always intended to wrongfoot his critics and weaken the moribund French left. But Mitterrand's appointment in the mid-term government reshuffle announced tonight was seen as the ultimate prize – it is as close as Sarkozy can get to the respected former socialist president and idol of the left.
Other changes to the government included replacing Rachida Dati, the justice minister and symbol of ethnic diversity, who has left for the European parliament. Michèle Alliot-Marie moved from the interior ministry to take over justice. Sarkozy's new ethnic minority figure is Nora Berra, who becomes a junior minister for the elderly. Berra, a doctor and newly elected MEP, has, like Dati, north African roots. But unlike Dati, she already has an established political track record in local government for Sarkozy's UMP party.
Frédéric Mitterrand, 61, a recognisable TV face who has written scores of books and directed several films, could bolster Sarkozy's efforts to counter charges that he is France's first philistine president and prefers jogging to the arts.
Unlike François Mitterrand, the enigmatic, bookish president who served from 1981 to 1995, Sarkozy is better known for enjoying American thrillers on DVD, cheesy French Elvis impersonators and slagging off 17th century French literature. But this image has been tempered since Sarkozy married the model turned folk singer, Carla Bruni. The couple now make highly publicised trips to the theatre and hold private meetings with arts and film figures, such as Woody Allen.
Mitterrand has spent the past eight months as head of the Villa Médicis French cultural academy in Rome, one of the most prestigious French cultural institutions abroad. He was appointed to Rome last September after outrage in the arts world that Sarkozy was going to parachute one of his former advisers into the job. The Italian-born Bruni was said to have helped persuade her husband of the importance of a fair appointment to the Rome cultural post.
Mitterrand's father, an engineer, was the brother of the late socialist president. A former teacher and film fan, Mitterrand ran cinemas in Paris before reinventing himself as a TV presenter, producer and director in the 1980s and 1990s. He was famous for his arts and history programmes and commentating on royal events on TV. He also presented a show on France's first gay cable channel, Pink TV.
He actively supported his uncle and was part of President Mitterrand's inner circle but didn't join his Socialist party. Despite joining a small leftwing party in 1993, he went on to back the centre-right Jacques Chirac for president in 1995.
Mitterrand said the culture ministry was "an exciting task and an honour". Asked if he was still on the left, he said: "When François Mitterrand didn't want to answer a question, he didn't. I'm the same."
Mitterrand's first headache will be Sarkozy's pet project, supported by Bruni – the hardline law to clamp down on illegal music and film downloading by cutting off repeat offenders' internet access.