Newly inaugurated French President Emmanuel Macron appointed a conservative prime minister in a move to broaden his political appeal and weaken his opponents before parliamentary elections in June.
Edouard Philippe, mayor of the port city of Le Havre, is from the moderate wing of the main centre-right party, The Republicans (LR), and will provide a counterweight to former Socialist members of parliament who have joined Mr Macron's cause.
Mr Macron wants to smash the left-right divide which has dominated France for decades, and his start-up centrist Republic on the Move (REM) party, which is just a year old, needs to forge a wide base of support.
Success in the parliamentary elections is vital to his chances of pushing through his plans to cut state spending ,boost investment and create jobs, after years of economic malaise and high unemployment.
The choice of Mr Philippe is aimed at drawing more defectors from The Republicans, in the same way as Mr Macron's decision not to put up an REM candidate in Manuel Valls' constituency pulls the Socialist former prime minister closer, and makes it hard for a divided left to re-unite.
It is the first time in modern French political history that a president has appointed a prime minister from outside his camp without being forced to by a defeat in parliamentary elections.
"I told myself that the situation we were in was so unique that we should try something that had never been tried before," Mr Philippe said on TF1 television.
Appearing earlier at a handover ceremony with outgoing Socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who is also from Normandy, Mr Philippe joked that Normans were "aggressively moderate" as well as "conquerors."
He also described himself as "a man of the right."
Mr Philippe is "a prime minister who will bring everyone together around a progressive, daring, unifying programme," said Gerard Collomb, the Socialist mayor of Lyon and one of the earliest backers of Mr Macron.
By appointing him, Mr Macron has passed over some loyal
followers including Richard Ferrand, a former Socialist who was one of the first to join Macron's cause last year and is secretary general of REM.
Christophe Castaner, Mr Macron's campaign spokesman, said yesterday this was the kind of tough choice that would have to be made in Mr Macron's inner circle now that the battle for the presidential Elysee Palace was won.
The rest of the government is expected to be announced tomorrow.
Philippe is a close associate of former prime minister Alain Juppe, who leads LR's moderate wing.
Mr Juppe welcomed the move, wishing him good luck and telling reporters Mr Philippe has "all the qualities needed for this difficult job."
Mr Juppe said he would be backing LR lawmakers in the mid-June elections, and not Mr Macron's candidates. But he added that if LR and its allies did not win a majority in June, voters "would not understand if we systematically opposed everything."
Mr Philippe began his political life as a Socialist activist affiliated to former prime minister Michel Rocard while he was a student, before turning to the right.
A trained lawyer, he worked as public affairs director for the state nuclear group Areva between 2007 and 2010, before becoming a member of parliament in 2012, and then mayor of Le Havre in 2014.
Last year he was part of Mr Juppe's unsuccessful campaign team in The Republicans' primaries, and then joined the presidential campaign of Francois Fillon, the party's nominee.
He quit that cause when Mr Fillon's campaign was hit by a financial over publicly funded jobs for members of his family.
Mr Philippe, like Mr Macron, attended the elite ENA school, and his political hero is Rocard - another point in common with the 39-year-old new president.
