PARIS: Railway executive Florence Parly was named France’s new defence minister on Wednesday after her predecessor and two other allies of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party quit amid a party funding investigation.

Parly, 54, a senior civil servant and executive in national rail operator SNCF’s passenger division, was a junior budget minister under Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin between 2000 and 2002.

The former head of the cargo arm of Air France takes over France’s nuclear-armed military from Sylvie Goulard, who stood down on Tuesday saying she could not remain in the cabinet with a potential investigation hanging over the MoDem party.

MoDem leader Francois Bayrou, the justice minister, and another minister from his party also stepped down after just over a month in office.

MoDem was allied with Macron’s 14-month-old Republic on the Move (REM) movement for both the presidential and legislative elections and was rewarded with three jobs in his first cabinet.

Bayrou claimed Wednesday he had been the target of a smear campaign over allegations his party had misused European Parliament funds to pay for staff who actually worked in Paris.

But the veteran centrist said he would still support the president he backed during his stunning rise to power.

Macron has pledged to usher in a new era of cleaner politics after a series of scandals involving ministers under his Socialist predecessor Francois Hollande.

REM has 308 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly and therefore does not need the support of MoDem, which won 42 seats, to push legislation through parliament.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2017