Valls asked to march with En Marche! for a ticket
Socialist ex-Prime Minister Manuel Valls must join the party of French Presidentelect Emmanuel Macron if he wants to run for Parliament under its banner in June, Macron’s camp said on Wednesday.
The news sends a signal to politicians to the left and right of Mr Macron’s yearold Republic on the Move party that they cannot sit on the fence as they seek to position themselves for the June elections that will complete the political landscape for the next five years. Some, like Mr Valls, want to be a part of a Macron majority, but others are preparing for Opposition, while the main centre-right grouping. The Republicans hopes to force the independent centrist into a coalition. Mr Valls, a politician on the pro-business right of the Socialist party, said on Tuesday he was interested in joining Mr Macron, a move that has angered Socialist colleagues, who are trying to prepare to fight the legislative elections after taking a beating in the vote for President.
“As of today, he (Valls) does not fit the criteria that would allow the investiture committee to take him on, so (until he joins) the national investiture committee that I preside over, cannot consider the candidature of Mr. Valls,” JeanPaul Delevoye, who chooses Mr Macron’s party’s candidates, told Europe 1 radio on Wednesday. Though Mr Macron’s party does not have any members in the current Parliament, Mr Macron and his aides are hoping to secure a majority in June, to allow him to push through economic reforms to revive an economy beset by high unemployment and sluggish growth.