Emmanuel Macron taps corona bureaucrat as new prime minister of France

Emmanuel Macron has named the bureaucrat who drew up the policy for easing France out of its lockdown as his new prime minister.

Jean Castex at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Picture: AFP

President Emmanuel Macron has named the senior ­bureaucrat who drew up the policy­ for easing France out of its coronavirus lockdown as his new prime minister.

The move followed the resignation on Friday of Edouard Philippe — and his entire government — as Mr Macron’s ruling party reels from dire local elect­ion results and the President prepares to tackle the economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr Philippe, who held the prime ministership for three years, will hand over to Jean Castex­, 55, officially a member of the right-wing opposition but who has risen to prominence while overseeing the country’s emergence from lockdown.

Mr Macron had said he ­wanted to set a “new course” for the government. A wider cabinet reshuffle was expected overnight.

Speculation that Mr Philippe was on the way out mounted this week after Mr Macron’s centrist party was routed in municipal elections last Sunday and the Greens took control of several major cities.

Mr Philippe, 49, a right-wing politician who never joined Mr Macron’s Republic on the Move party, easily won his bid to ­become mayor of Le Havre.

Yet while Mr Macron was widely expected to seek to boost his Socialist credentials with a leftist premier, Mr Castex is from the rightist Republicans party.

While Mr Philippe’s approval ratings surged over his handling of the coronavirus crisis, those of Mr Macron, who has pursued ambitious economic reforms since coming to office in 2017, have fallen.

In an interview with regional newspapers published on Thursday, Mr Macron said France must prepare for a “very difficult” economic crisis, “so we have to chart a new course”. “I see this based on an economic, social, environmen­tal and cultural reconstructio­n,” he said. “Behind this, there will be a new team.”

Serving Mr Macron from the start of his presidency, Mr Philippe­ has pushed through a series­ of controversial overhauls that sparked massive strikes as well as the fierce “yellow vest” anti-government revolt.

At a meeting on Thursday, Mr Macron and Mr Philippe “agreed on the need for a new government to embody a new phase for this term”, an official in the Elysee­ Palace said.

“A new phase is opening, with new talents and new methods for governing,” the official said.

Press reports had suggested that possible replacements could have included Defence Minister Florence Parly or Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, both ­Socialists before joining Mr Macron’s team.

But analysts say Mr Macron had a thin bench of potential replacemen­ts, not least because his young party has failed to prod­uce any standouts from its parliamentary ranks — meaning he could tap someone relatively unknown to the public.

Other top ministers could also be on the way out in a cabinet reshuff­le. Under particular pressure­ is Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, who has been assailed by critics over the failure to contain the rioting and looting that marred the “yellow vest” protests of 2018-19.

More recently, Mr Castaner has drawn the ire of police who say he has failed to support them against renewed claims of violence and racism in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Since the start of Mr Macron’s presidency, 17 ministers have quit the government, most recently Agnes Buzyn, who stepped down as health minister.

AFP