French Socialists bid to rally primary voters
PARIS: French Socialist presidential candidate Manuel Valls sought to re- energise the beleaguered Left on Tuesday, as he set out his programme to clinch his party’s presidential nomination for elections this year.
The former premier is one of seven contenders for the Socialist nomination in this year’s tworound presidential election in April and May. The winner will be picked in a two-round primary on Jan 22 and 29.
But polls suggest whoever wins the Socialist ticket will not make it into the presidential runoff, expected to pit conservative Francois Fillon against far-right Front National leader Marine Le Pen.
On Tuesday Valls and rival Vincent Peillon, a former education minister, offered contrasting visions of France’s place in Europe, with the expremier vowing to defend hardup voters who feel ‘robbed of their destiny’.
Valls, 54, threw his hat in the ring for president after Francois Hollande announced he would not seek a second term after a turbulent four years marked by terror attacks, labour protests and a deep economic malaise.
Hollande’s tenure was also marred by severe infighting within the Socialist Party ( PS), between the centre-left leadership and die-hard leftists.
“This time the PS is fighting for its survival,” Le Parisien daily wrote in a front-page headline Tuesday.
“The question is not whether the left can win. The left must win,” said Valls, calling himself the candidate of a “strong Republic and a just France.”
But his record in government risks being a millstone.
His rivals have made much of his failure to significantly dent unemployment and use of decrees to ride roughshod over Socialist opposition to contested reforms.
Two of his primary opponents — former economy minister Arnaud Montebourg and former education minister Benoit Hamon — quit his government in protest over what they saw as its betrayal of leftist ideals.
“I take full responsibility for what we put in place,” Valls said of his stint under Hollande.
But he also attempted to put some distance between himself and the most unpopular president in France’s post-war history.
If elected, he said, he would push for a conference among likeminded EU leaders to discuss the bloc’s ‘reorganisation’.
He also vowed to defend French sovereignty and called for Turkish membership of the EU to be defi nitively taken off the cards.
Peillon, a 56-year- old Hollande loyalist, came out in defence of Brussels. — AFP