President Emmanuel Macron has named EU former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as France’s new prime minister.
The announcement came on Thursday after more than 50 days of caretaker government.
The appointment of the 73-year-old Barnier follows weeks of intense efforts by Macron and his aides to find a candidate who might be able to build loose groupings of backers in parliament and survive possible attempts by Mr Macron’s opponents to quickly topple the new government that Mr Barnier will now put together and lead.
A statement from Mr Macron’s office announcing Mr Barnier’s appointment said he had been tasked “with forming a unifying government to serve the country and the French people”.
The statement added: “This appointment comes after an unprecedented cycle of consultations during which, in accordance with his constitutional duty, the President ensured that the prime minister and the future government would meet the conditions to be as stable as possible and give themselves the chances of uniting as broadly as possible.”