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France's interior minister expected to be ousted in new government unveiled on Monday

French interior minister Christophe Castaner - BERTRAND GUAY/ AFP
French interior minister Christophe Castaner - BERTRAND GUAY/ AFP

Emmanuel Macron is expected to ditch France’s unpopular interior minister in a reshuffle on Monday that could see him poach new names from Left and Right, as he seeks to relaunch his presidency in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

The centrist leader took the country by surprise last week by sacking his prime minister who the French lauded for his handling of the pandemic while the president’s approval ratings sagged.

Edouard Philippe was re-elected mayor of northern port town, Le Havre, on Sunday barely two days after the French president replaced him with Jean Castex, a conservative former civil servant dubbed Mr Deconfinement for having masterminded the country’s lockdown exit.

Some say the move has effectively turned Mr Macron into prime minister and president rolled into one, with Mr Castex playing a largely technocratic supporting role.

However, the new government chief, long mayor of the southwestern town of Prades, insisted on Sunday that he would be no mere presidential “collaborator” seeking “soft consensus”.

 French Prime minister Jean Castex  - JULIEN DE ROSA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
French Prime minister Jean Castex - JULIEN DE ROSA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Speculation was rife over the makeup of the new cabinet, due to be announced on Monday.

Mr Macron is widely expected to jettison Christophe Castaner, his interior minister, criticised for failing to quell yellow-vest anti-government protests in 2018 and 2019.

Mr Castaner also infuriated the police force under his command by outlawing chokeholds when detaining suspects in the wake of the county’s own Black Lives Matter protests.

Some 73 per cent of French want to see him go, according to an Ifop poll in Le Journal du Dimanche. Among those cited as potential replacements is former French police chief Frédéric Péchenard.

Others on shaky ground are justice minister Nicole Belloubet and employment minister Muriel Pénicaud.

Among those expected to remain are finance minister Bruno Le Maire and health minister Olivier Véran, along with veteran foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, one of the few Socialists still in government.

The leader in the Senate of Mr Macron’s centrist party, La République En Marche, said the president was considering offering government posts to a former conservative minister, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, and a former Socialist prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve.

Ségolène Royal, a former Socialist presidential candidate and environment minister, claimed she had been sounded out.

Macroniste MEP Pascal Canfin, former head of the World Wildlife Fund France, is another potential newcomer.

In an interview on Sunday, Mr Castex said his first task would be to kickstart the economy and conclude an overhaul of the health system “next week”, as well as passing a hotly-contested pension reform that sparked the longest strike in modern French history.

Mr Macron is expected to outline a “new path” for the last two years of his presidency in a televised address to the French on July 14, Bastille Day.