François Hollande was inaugurated as President of France yesterday. Almost immediately afterwards he appointed the new PM, Jean-Marc Ayrault.

PM Ayrault is mayor of Nantes and the former leader of the Socialist (PS) group in the National Assembly. In fact, he was leader of the PS group from 1997-2012.

Interestingly, neither President Hollande nor PM Ayrault has any ministerial experience. From 1997-2002, the last time the PS was in government, Hollande was leader of PS.

There used to be a rule that the first PM under a new president was a political appointment, whereas the next PM was more technocratic. This rule held pretty well until 2007 when President Sarkozy appointed François Fillon but then kept the same PM for his full five-year term. Anyway, the appointment of PM Ayrault would certainly be classed as a political appointment rather than a technocratic one.

The set of ministers will be announced over the next few days. Given some people, such as Martine Aubry and Manuel Valls will be very disappointed not to be PM, they can expect senior ministerial positions.