France’s new prime minister, Jean Castex, has made few major changes to the cabinet after President Emmanuel Macron gambled on a reshuffle to reboot his presidency and tighten his grip on government before seeking re-election in 2022, reports The Guardian.
The Élysée Palace had promised “new faces and talents”, but key ministers from the outgoing government stayed, including the centre-right Bruno Le Maire at economic affairs and finance and Jean-Yves Le Drian, a former Socialist, at foreign affairs.
Health minister Olivier Véran, who helped lead France’s response to the pandemic, also kept his job, as did Florence Parly at defence.
But the interior minister, Christophe Castaner, widely criticised for his handling of the anti-government gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) protest and protests over police brutality, was replaced by accounts minister Gérald Darmanin.
An MP from Macron’s centrist La République en Marche (LREM) party, Barbara Pompili, was promoted to the environment portfolio, a major priority for the last two years of Macron’s term, and a high-profile criminal defence lawyer was appointed to justice.
Analysts said Castex, a relatively unknown career bureaucrat and provincial mayor who successfully ran France’s exit from its coronavirus lockdown, would now need to move decisively to convince voters he was the right choice for the job.
The 55-year-old was named successor to the popular Édouard Philippe on Friday as Macron seeks a fresh start. The country faces a deep recession forecast to shrink its economy by 11%, wiping out any gains from the pro-business reforms he pushed through in the first three years of his term.
The president tweeted on Sunday that he was aiming for a “new path” focused on “reviving the economy, continuing to overhaul social and environmental protections, re-establishing a fair republican order and defending European sovereignty”.