The Nobel laureate known as “the banker of the poor”, Muhammad Yunuswill seek to bring stability to Bangladeshafter saying yes to the call of his country’s student protesters to temporarily lead the government after weeks of anti-government protests that left hundreds dead.

84-year-old Mohammed Yunus takes over to lead the interim government after the South Asian country’s prime minister was overthrown and parliament dissolved.

Yunus is a businessman and banker who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his pioneering work on microfinancewhich helped alleviate poverty in Bangladesh and was widely adopted around the world.

He has long been a critic of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who resigned two days ago and fled the country after years of increasingly authoritarian rule.

A source told CNN that Yunus was in France for a minor medical procedure but will soon return to Bangladesh to take over as interim leader.

The team Students Against Discrimination confirmed his return, telling CNN: “We are pleased to say that Dr Yunus has accepted the challenge to save Bangladesh as per the request of our students.”

Who is Yunus?

He was born in 1940 in Chittagong, a port city in southeastern Bangladesh, according to his profile on the Nobel Prize website.

He studied at the University of Dhaka, before receiving the prestigious Fulbright scholarship to attend Vanderbilt University in the United States, where he received a PhD in economics.

In 1972, a year after Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, he returned to teach at Chittagong University.

But disaster soon struck. A severe famine swept the country in 1974, killing an estimated 1.5 million people.

“It was difficult to teach elegant theories of economics at the university while there was a terrible famine in Bangladesh. Suddenly, I felt the emptiness of these theories in the face of overwhelming hunger and poverty,” he said in his Nobel lecture in 2006 after receiving the prize.

“I wanted to do something immediate to help the people around me, even if it was just one person, get through another day with a little more ease,” he said.

Yunus began providing small loans from his own pocket to the poorest residents of his community. He eventually founded the Grameen Bank in 1983, which would become a world leader in poverty alleviation through microcredit.

The bank grew rapidly, with different branches and similar models now operating around the world.

The Nobel Prize came in 2006 after Yunus and Grameen Bank had lent a total of about $6 billion in housing, student and micro-business loans, specifically to support Bangladeshi women.

He is also its founder Yunus Centrea Dhaka-based think tank that helps develop new social enterprises.

His critics say the high interest rates of some microlenders have impoverished borrowers by making big profits on small loans.

Yunus has pushed back against those claims, telling CNN earlier this year that Grameen Bank doesn’t aim to make money, but to help the poor and empower small businesses.

Clashes with the Hasina government

Over the years, Yunus has repeatedly clashed with former Prime Minister Hasina, who accused him of “drinking the blood of the poor,” according to Reuters.

Yunus briefly proposed forming a new political party in 2007 ahead of parliamentary elections, which Hasina rejected at the time, saying political newcomers were “dangerous elements … to be treated with suspicion”.

Yunus ultimately did not proceed with the formation of the party.

In 2011, Bangladesh’s government-controlled central bank removed Yunus as chief executive of Grameen Bank, saying he had passed the mandatory retirement age.

In the years that followed, Yunus faced numerous legal prosecutions, with his supporters saying he had been unfairly targeted by the government.

Against him there were cases of defamation, food safety and allegations of tax irregularities, which he denied.

In January, a court in Bangladesh sentenced him to six months in prison for labor law violations, with the banker again denying any wrongdoing.

In a separate case, he was charged in June with embezzlement.

Hasina’s government said its actions against Yunus were not politically motivated, but the banker disagreed. It is currently unclear what will happen to these prosecutions now that Hasina is out of power.

Speaking to CNN in February while appealing his prison sentence, Yunus said the corruption allegations against him were baseless.

In an interview with Reuters in June, he said Bangladesh has turned into a “one-party” state, with the ruling party squelching all political competition.

In an interview with CNN after Hasina resigned on Monday, Yunus called on the military to hand over control of the country to a civilian government. He blamed Hasina, saying she “tortured us, made this country unlivable for people”.

“People are celebrating in the streets and millions of people across Bangladesh are celebrating as if this is our liberation day,” he said.