French President Francois Hollande has appointed Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve as the country's new prime minister following the resignation of Manuel Valls.
Valls announced Monday that he would seek the nomination of the Socialist party as its candidate in the 2017 presidential elections. Hollande ruled out running for a second term Thursday after recording very low popularity ratings.
Valls resigned Tuesday morning in order to focus on his candidacy, and Hollande announced that he had appointed Cazeneuve "to form the new government" via Twitter.
Cazeneuve has served as interior minister since August 2014 and has overseen France's reaction to a string of jihadi assaults, including the November 2015 Paris attacks in which attackers linked to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) killed 130 people.
According to opinion polls, the Socialist party looks unlikely to succeed in the 2017 presidential election. The candidate of the center-right Republican party, Francois Fillon, appears to be the early favorite, but will face a challenge from Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front.
