Clash: Hamon takes on Valls
France’s Socialists were scheduled to offer a stark contrast in Wednesday’s debate between die-hard leftist Benoit Hamon and reformist ex-prime minister Manuel Valls as the two vie for the party’s presidential nomination.
Valls and Hamon “have each taken half of the pie: Governmental authority for one, activist hope for the other,” said Laurent Joffrin, editor-in-chief of the leftist daily Liberation.
Hamon, the surprise winner of the first round of the Socialists’ primary on Sunday, has wooed voters with his staunchly leftist proposals, notably the idea of a universal basic income, dismissed as a“mirage” by Val ls.
He also wants to legalize marijuana and tax robots that replace workers.
Hamon, 49, a round-faced with a schoolboy haircut, has a crowd-pleasing eagerness that contrasts with the square-jawed assertiveness of Valls, 54, who was interior minister before becoming prime minister.
Val ls sees Ham on as“a utopian ”, said Laurent Bodin of the northeastern daily L’Alsace. “To Hamon, Valls is not at all a Socialist but a man of the right.”
Hamon joined a rebellion against what he saw as the government’s rightward drift under Valls and President Francois Hollande, quitting as education minister in 2014.
‘A clear choice’
Valls, a lover of boxing and football who describes himself as a “fighter”, will need to draw on his pugnacity to reclaim the upper hand ahead of the primary runoff vote on Sunday.
He dismissed Hamon’s firstround win as the result of a protest vote by Socialists for whom opinion polls offer scant hope that their eventual nominee will win the presidential race this spring.
“A clear choice is before us— the choice between certain defeat and possible victory,” Valls said on Sunday.
“I want nothing of these mirages that evaporate in an instant and that sow disillusionment (and) bitterness,” he told an earlier campaign rally.
Valls has warned “the left could die” and has described the emergence of two “irreconcilable” factions — one pragmatic and open to reforms, the other wedded to the class struggle.
Such statements have comparisons to former British prime minister Tony Blair who dragged his Labour party toward the center and won three successive elections.
Valls is not the only one making dire warnings of a lasting rift within the party that dominatedFrance just five years ago.
“In the china shop, the PS (Socialist Party) elephants have already broken everything in the china shop,” said Yann Marec, deputy editor of Midi Libre, a southern regional paper.