Bernard Cazeneuve is among the favourites to replace Gabriel Attal as Prime Minister. A look back at his political career, since his beginnings as a lawyer.
Bernard Cazeneuve’s name has been mentioned all summer as one of the favorites to join Matignon. While he appears to be the experienced profile, open to consensus and who could manage to bring together the left and the right, there is no reason to believe that he will take Gabriel Attal’s place in the coming days. Other candidates are in the running, including Xavier Bertrand, the president of the Hauts-de-France region. Unless Emmanuel Macron surprises everyone by appointing Thierry Beaudet to Matignon. According to information from The Opinionthe current president of the Cese (Economic, Social and Environmental Council) could be appointed as Prime Minister. He even gave his agreement to the head of state last Thursday, according to the daily. “I’m going to need loyal friends,” the person concerned whispered to one of his friends.
Lawyer, from a left-wing family
Bernard Cazeneuve grew up in a socialist family. He is the son of Algerian pieds-noirs. His father, Gérard Cazeneuve, was a schoolteacher in the Châteauneuf district, in the commune of El Biar, near Algiers. The Cazeneuve family returned to France during the “events” in Algeria and settled in Oise, where Bernard Cazeneuve was born. His father was a leader of the PS in Oise. Following in his footsteps, his involvement in politics began during his studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Bordeaux. He headed the federation of the young radical left movement of Gironde, then became a member of the national office of the Movement of Radical Left (MRG) in 1985, before joining the PS in 1987.
Before dedicating his life to politics, he began a career as a lawyer at Banque Populaire. A career in the business sector that he returned to in 2017, after resigning following the election of Emmanuel Macron, by returning to the business law firm August Debouzy in Paris as an associate lawyer, which notably deals with Microsoft, Dassault, Nike, Orange and SNCF, as recalled TF1 info.
Mayor of Cherbourg-Octeville
After starting his career as a lawyer, Bernard Cazeneuve became a technical advisor in the office of Thierry de Beaucé, Secretary of State for International Cultural Relations in 1991, then chief of staff to Alain Vivien, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1992. In 1994, he was parachuted into the canton of Cherbourg-Sud-Ouest to try to rally the various local socialist movements. He campaigned in favour of Greater Cherbourg, which was supposed to merge six communes in the urban area. A referendum resulted in the reunion of Cherbourg and Octeville. In 2001, he became mayor of the city.
In 2007, he was elected as MP for the 5th constituency of La Manche, against the outgoing UMP MP, Jean Lemière. He then led a left-wing union list in 2008 that won the municipal elections in Cherbourg-Octeville. He was re-elected mayor. Three years later, in 2011, he was appointed as one of François Hollande’s four spokespeople for the 2012 presidential election. He then gained visibility in the media.
Four times minister under François Hollande
In 2012, he was appointed Minister Delegate for European Affairs, working with Laurent Fabius, after François Hollande’s victory. In 2013, Bernard Cazeneuve was appointed Minister Delegate for the Budget after the resignation of Jérôme Cahuzac, accused of tax fraud. He was then appointed Minister of the Interior, a position he held from 2014 to 2016, under the Valls I and II governments. There, he was confronted with the series of Islamist attacks that shook France. First with the attack on Charlie Hebdo on January 7 by the Kouachi brothers, then the shooting in Montrouge by Amedy Coulibaly, and the escape of the two brothers. He was in command during the two hostage-takings on January 9: at the Hyper Cacher at Porte de Vincennes (Coulibaly) and at the printing works in Dammartin-en-Goële (Kouachi). He was also responsible for leading the police during the attacks of November 13, at the Stade de France, the Bataclan and on the terraces of the 10th and 11th arrondissements of Paris.
He was appointed Prime Minister of François Hollande after the resignation of Manuel Valls. The latter wanted to leave the government to run in the citizen primary for the 2017 presidential election. He remained at Matignon from December 6, 2016 to May 15, 2017, breaking the record for the shortest time at Matignon, held before him by Édith Cresson.
He slammed the door on the PS and founded his own party: La Convention
On May 4, 2022, Bernard Cazeneuve announced that he was leaving the Socialist Party (PS) after the agreement reached between the party and LFI before the June legislative elections. “The party’s leaders have lost their compass,” he declared in La Manche libre. He subsequently published a manifesto “for a social-democratic, republican, humanist and ecological left,” the opposite of what the new Nupes would be, in which the PS nevertheless figures. He also justified his departure by saying that he had “left the Socialist Party in disagreement with the alliance made with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party.”
Bernard Cazeneuve subsequently created his own political movement, La Convention, assuring that it was “the left of government that changes the life that you seek to revive”. Particularly critical of LFI, he could embody a left-wing Prime Minister, as the French called him in the legislative elections, but without the rebels, as desired by a majority of the Assembly.
A discreet wife, died in June 2024
He married Véronique Beau in 1995, at the age of 32. Director of a children’s publishing house, they have two children together: Nathan and Mona. The first studied at the École Normale Supérieure and the School of Public Affairs at Sciences Po, two prestigious schools. He is an associate professor of philosophy and wrote a thesis on “the social state and the theory of sovereignty”. He created the journal Germinal in 2020, which aims to be “the left’s equivalent of the journal Commentaire of the early 1980s”, according to Gala. Mona obtained her BA in theatre in England and graduated from ESRA in directing and screenwriting. She is now an international acquisitions coordinator at Fédération Studios.
The Cazeneuve couple divorced in 2012, after three years of separation, but got back together in 2015. They even remarried in August of the same year. On Sunday, June 2, 2024, the wife of the former Prime Minister died after a long illness, as reported by La Presse de la Manche. Véronique Cazenave had a master’s degree in comparative literature from Paris IV. The socialist senator of Manche Sébastien Fagnen, close to Bernard Cazenave, spoke at the time of her death of “sad news. Madame Cazenave was a discreet woman, in love with literature”.