France's Macron revs up with new government ahead of 2022

PARIS -- President Emmanuel Macron is promising that a new French government expected to be named later Monday will be one of “purpose and unity.”

The French leader fired off a series of tweets late Sunday as he gears up with a new government team for the last two years of his five-year term.

Macron last week ditched the prime minister, Edouard Philippe, who steered France through its coronavirus lockdown and the first three years of Macron's presidency.

The new prime minister, Jean Castex, is a career civil servant with no ministerial experience. His low profile suggests that Macron doesn't want to be overshadowed should he choose to stand again in 2022. The 42-year-old Macron has not yet said if he'll seek a second term.

Macron tweeted that the platform upon which he stood in 2017, promising to modernize France and free up its businesses, remains central to his politics but “must adapt to the international upheavals and crises we are experiencing: A new path must be forged.”

First among the priorities that Macron listed for the coming months is helping the French economy recover from the battering delivered by the pandemic.

He didn't give policy specifics.

Reports in the French media said that a reshuffled government of about 20 ministers would be named Monday to work with Castex.

Castex, 55, most recently coordinated the step-by-step approach that France adopted in coming out of its strict two-month coronavirus lockdown.

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/frances-macron-revs-government-ahead-2022-71625669