The appointment Friday of former French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner to head the UN civilian mission in Kosovo earned France a major victory in the effort to shape UN policy in the Balkans.

Kouchner, founder and first president of Medicins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), was selected by UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan to head the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) Friday. Annan praised him for his “leadership, management and energy.”

Yet Kouchner’s selection came only after a tough battle among several European governments and the United States, with the leaders of the main North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) countries openly vying for leadership in Kosovo.

Sources told IPS that Annan had been ready to announce that Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who had played a key role in the talks last month that ended the 11-week NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo, would be the UN envoy to head UNMIK.

Yet French President Jacques Chirac reportedly succeeded in lobbying against Ahtisaari’s nomination, arguing that the Finnish president would have to step down from office to serve as UNMIK administrator.

Ahtisaari – whose term expires next year, and whose country will chair the European Union for the second half of this year – withdrew his name from consideration on Tuesday.

French pressure also pushed Kouchner, who served as health minister under Chirac’s predecessor, Francois Mitterrand, ahead of three other Europeans: Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk, European Humanitarian Commissioner Emma Bonino and Paddy Ashdown, former head of Britain’s Liberal Democratic Party.

In naming Kouchner, Annan stressed the winner’s “remarkable credentials” in dealing with refugees around the world.

Yet one official, who declined to be named, said that Kouchner’s selection showed that Britain and the United States needed to lock in French support for UN efforts to reconstruct the Balkans, in the aftermath of the brief war in Yugoslavia.

US diplomats privately acknowledged that top officials, including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, had lobbied strongly for Ahtisaari. But under pressure from Chirac’s efforts, all sides relented and agreed on Kouchner, even though some US officials regarded the maverick French politician “a wild card,” as one official put it.

The United States, on the other hand, won the post of principal deputy in the UNMIK mission, which Annan said Friday would be filled by Jock Covey, a former member of the US National Security Council.

Covey will be second in command to Kouchner, who in turn must coordinate UNMIK’s activities with the commander of the NATO-led Kosovo Force, Gen. Michael Jackson of Britain. (Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian and UN under-secretray-general, headed UNMIK on an interim basis until Kouchner’s appointment.)

The huge UNMIK mission – which is to take over virtually all administration of Kosovo, following the departure in recent weeks of Yugoslav security forces from the province – is one of the most ambitious UN operations in many years.

Annan said this week that he expected the United Nations will have to be involved in reconstruction work in Kosovo for “probably a 10-year period.”

Although UNMIK’s civilian operation may not last that entire time, the mission is expected to handle a wide range of tasks – from administering police and levying taxes to preparing the safe return of refugees and training Kosovars for self-government – for many years.

Annan noted that a recent UN administrative mission in nearby Eastern Slavonia completed its work within two years. But few expect the work in Kosovo – where about 400,000 of the 800,000 Kosovar Albanians expelled in recent months have returned in the past two weeks alone – to be done as quickly.

Kouchner said Friday that his first duties will probably be to ensure security in the province and build up health services for the Kosovars.

In the long run, however, he faces formidable challenges, which are likely to be just as much the subject of political bickering as his selection was.

Even as the Kosovar Albanians return, many of them have made clear that they intend to take up the governance of the province in the absence of the Yugoslav troops. UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Bernard Miyet warned this week that UN police and NATO troops need to be deployed quickly to prevent a power vacuum in Kosovo.

Yet with nations having pledged to provide only some 1,900 of an estimated 3,100 UN police needed for Kosovo, and with NATO having dispatched less than half of its projected 50,000 troops so far, the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has begun to assert its authority.

UN officials noted reports of attacks by Kosovar Albanians on Serbs and Gypsies living in the province. Annan urged this week that nations step up provision of police so that UNMIK can protect all of Kosovo’s ethnic groups.

Beyond that, Kouchner faces questions about how much influence the KLA will have in Kosovo. Will the rebels be allowed to serve in a future police force? Will rebel leaders – like KLA chief Hashim Thaci, who has already declared himself the province’s prime minister – be given positions of authority?

Just as crucially, the European powers who directed the NATO war in Yugoslavia are divided about whether the Kosovars – 90 percent of whom are Albanian – should hold a referendum to determine if they wish to remain part of Yugoslavia, to be independent, or even to join neighbouring Albania.

Those hard questions loomed in the background this week as governments lobbied over who would hold UNMIK’s reins. Now, it will be Kouchner’s turn to face them.