The resignation of Manuel Valls in his bid to become French President has precipitated Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to the position of Prime Minister. But who is Véronique Cazeneuve, his wife?
Even amongst the French public, little is known about Véronique Cazeneuve. She keeps it very discreet and doesn’t give public interviews, preferring to stick to her career as an independent editor rather than bask in the limelight.
Born in 1961, she is older than her more famous husband (born in ’63) and obtained a master’s degree in comparative literature from the Sorbonne. She then went teaching for three years before turning her hand to editing and re-writing for several French publishing houses, all the while maintaining a strong interest in cultural communication.
In 2009, she took the plunge and launched her own publishing company – À dos d’âne, which specialises in children’s books. All the while, she remains a loyal support to her politician husband Bernard Cazeneuve; a Socialist party stalwart who was first elected deputy in 1997 and who has served in three ministries as well as a stint as mayor of Cherbourg-Octeville.
Bernard and Véronique met 20 years ago and are the proud parents of two grown-up children (the oldest of whom is an afficionado of the electric guitar and drums). Her musical tastes are not known publicly, but they might be somewhere in between that of her eldest son and that of her husband, who has confessed to a penchant for the musical “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” (he apparently still gives umbrellas as gifts to friends in fond remembrance of his time as mayor of the town) and the singer Karen Cheryl. What we do know is that Bernard likes to bring her to the choral concerts at the Abbaye de Royaumont in his native Oise.
In 2012, the couple divorced, only to re-marry on the 12th of August 2015. It was a small quiet affair in the tiny town of Aiguines in the Haut Var in the South of France. Attended by close family and close members of of Socialist Party family, they rounded off their official reunion with a meal in a local restaurant. It seems that the Cazeneuves like to keep things simple.