French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday named the nation's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve as the new Prime Minister after former PM Manuel Valls formally announced his resignation on Tuesday.
Cazeneuve is said to lead Hollande's Socialist government until a new President of France is elected next year in May. Cazeneuve was handed the new position after Valls on Monday declared his candidacy for the French presidential elections due next year. He also announced that he would leave his position as the country's premier.
President Hollande had also announced last week that he would not seek a second presidential term and dropped off from the next presidential bid.
Cazeneuve's role will be to act as a caretaker Prime Minister until a new government is formed next year. He has held the position of the Interior Minister since April 2014 and has dealt with a series of deadly Islamist militant attacks in the country which killed more than 230 people since January 2015. Cazeneuve, 54, in his term as the Interior Minister has also overseen a period of emergency rule established in the wake of the brutal attacks.
Cazeneuve is also called 'the Cardinal' by many in his own staff for his frosty demeanour. He had previously assumed the position of Europe minister and the budget minister in the government.
In the French elections, the far-right National Front party is expecting an upset similar to that of anti-establishment votes in the United States, Britain and Italy, where Donald Trump won the elections, Britain voted out of European Union and Italian PM Matteo Renzi resigned after facing a defeat in a referendum.
Although earlier polls indicate a victory for far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the opening round of the election, it was later suggested that she would be defeated by the conservative candidate Francois Fillon. Several leaders have warned against the win of Le Pen and said that she would "take us out of Europe" and her policies would "ruin the working class."
