French President Emmanuel Macron has appointed Jean Castex as the successor to retired Prime Minister Édouard Philippe.
Insiders already tipped the former official as a possible successor to Philippe, who resigned with his government on Friday.
55-year-old Castex was recently in charge of easing the French measures against the new coronavirus. Previously, he was a member of the parliament of the Pyrénées-Orientales and Languedoc-Roussillon regions and was mayor.
He was also chairman of the National Sports Agency. Until this year, Castex was a member of the centre-right LR party and before that of its predecessor, the UMP.
Castex has to assemble a new cabinet. This should, among other things, give substance to the environmental and climate reforms that Macron announced earlier this week.
Macron did that after a sensitive defeat in the municipal elections on Sunday. In addition, his liberal party LREM lost many voters to the green EELV.
