FILE: France picks Thierry Breton for key EU commission job President Emmanuel Macron has proposed former economy minister Thierry Breton, who rescued France Telecom, as Paris's candidate for a major portfolio in the European Commission. European members of parliament rejected Sylvie Goulard, his first candidate for the Brussels executive, on October 10 in a rare political defeat on the European stage for the French leader. Breton was Jacques Chirac's economy minister from 2005 to 2007 and currently heads information technology multinational Atos where he has doubled turnover to more than 12 billion euros and staff numbers to 122,000. FILE IMAGES