The first government of Valls, who was appointed less than five months ago, fell on Monday after a row with Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg, who resigned along with two other ministers from the left.

He will be replaced by Emmanuel Macron, a former Rothschild banker and ex-presidential economic adviser.

President Hollande is seeking a coherent line on economic policy after recent criticism from the left wing of his Socialist Party.

Many see it as his last chance to make a successful presidency, after his recent poll ratings sunk to 17%.
Key portfolios unchanged

For the first time, a woman – Najat Vallaud-Belkacem – will be put in charge of education, replacing Benoit Hamon who also lost his job.

Ms Vallaud-Belkacem was minister for women’s rights in the last cabinet.

Meanwhile, Fleur Pellerin has been made minister for culture, replacing Aurelie Filippetti who is also out of the government.

Key ministers in the previous cabinet, like Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Finance Minister Michel Sapin, retain their posts.

Hollande’s former partner and the mother of his four children, Segolene Royal, will retain her post as environment and energy minister.

President Hollande said earlier that the new cabinet should “cohere to the directions of the prime minister”, who is on the party’s right wing.

Prime Minister Valls said he would hold a parliamentary vote of confidence in September or October, speaking in a TV interview after the new ministers were named.

“And you will see, the majority will be there. There can be no other way. If the majority isn’t there on that occasion, it would be finished. We couldn’t finish our work,” he told France 2 TV.

He also defended the choice of a former banker for new economy minister, saying: “So what? Can one not in this country be an entrepreneur? One can’t be a banker?”

The BBC’s Lucy Williamson, in Paris, says the new economy minister’s key selling point is that he shares the president’s pro-business, centre-right vision – unlike his predecessor.

But, she adds, the fault lines in the Socialist party and its allies have not gone away, and there is a danger those divisions will simply switch to the National Assembly.

Montebourg quit after publicly urging the government to end austerity policies and focus on growth.

France is struggling with high unemployment and low growth, and Hollande’s popularity is the lowest for a president in more than 50 years.

Earlier this month, the French government admitted it would be impossible to reach a previous growth forecast of one per cent.

Valls was appointed prime minister on 31 March, to revive the fortunes of the ruling party after it took a hammering at local elections.

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The government was badly shaken on Sunday by criticism over its handling of the economy by economy minister Arnaud Montebourg.

Moments after Valls’s resignation Hollande issued a statement asking Valls to set up a new cabinet “consistent with the direction [Hollande] has set for the country”.

The prime minister had accused Montebourg of “crossing a yellow line” after the economy minister had attacked austerity measures which he said were strangling France’s growth.

Montebourg told a meeting of Socialists in eastern France that the time had come to put up a “just and sane resistance” to the “excessive obsessions of Germany’s conservatives”.

On Saturday, he told Le Monde newspaper that Germany was trapped in an austerity policy that it imposed across Europe”.

He was backed up by education minister Benoit Hamon and appeared to have the support of culture minister Aurelie Filippetti, too.

Hamon called on Sunday for a revival in demand and for an end to German Chancellor Angela Merkel setting Europe’s direction: “You can’t sell anything to the French if they don’t have enough income,” he said.

Manuel Valls became prime minister in March after a poor performance by President Hollande’s Socialist party in local elections.

Earlier this month, the French government admitted it would be impossible to reach a previous growth forecast of 1%. Germany saw its economy shrink by 0.2% between April and June.

Montebourg told French radio shortly before Valls announced the government’s resignation that he had no regrets about his remarks, “first of all because there’s no anger”.

There was no debate about authority, he told Europe 1 radio, but a “debate about economic direction”.

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