Paris  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will name Frederic Mitterand, a nephew of Socialist icon and former president Francois Mitterand, as his new culture minister, the minister-to-be said Tuesday on French television.

The 61-year-old Mitterand, a writer, film director and producer, and TV executive, was working as the director of the Villa Medicis in Rome, one of France's most prestigious foreign cultural institutions. Sarkozy named him to the post last year.

The move will be seen as a jab at the opposition Socialists, for many of whom Francois Mitterand, who died in 1996, remains a political hero.

The only Socialist to hold the presidency in the Fifth Republic, Mitterand succeeded in turning the party into a unified and powerful force.

The move will also be seen as an expression of Sarkozy's dissatisfaction with the outgoing culture minister, Christine Albanel, and her failure to draw up a credible law against internet piracy.

The law she pushed through Parliament was struck down on June 10 by the Constitutional Council, a body roughly equivalent to the US Supreme Court. (dpa)