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Five things to know about Manuel Valls
by Ben Hall, FT’s world news editor and a former correspondent in Paris
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French President François Hollande has made an uncharacteristically audacious decision in appointing Manuel Valls, an economic reformer and Socialist party moderniser, as his new prime minister. Here are five things you need to know about the new premier:
1) Mr Valls, 51, is about as rightwing as you can be in France’s Socialist party. He is about as close as you can get in France to Britain’s New Labour(championed by Tony Blair), which is regarded by the French left as a toxic brand. He was fond of Blairite mantras. “We must change or die,” he argued in 2009, when the Socialist party was foundering under the leadership of leftwinger Martine Aubry. He even suggested ditching “Socialist” from the party name. At one point he was threatened with expulsion from the party for speaking out.
2) He made his mark as the slick spokesman for the dour Lionel Jospin, prime minister from 1997 to 2002. He saw up close Mr Jospin’s disastrous bid for the presidency in 2002 when the National Front’s Jean-Marie Le Pen beat the Socialist candidate to make it through to the second, run-off vote (Jospin came only third in the first round voting, therefore Chirac and Le Pen entered into the second round, before Chirac got reelected). But Mr Valls’ formative political years were as mayor of Evry, a gritty, multi-ethnic newtown in the southern suburbs of Paris. His “tough on crime” message endeared him to working-class voters – and to Nicolas Sarkozy, Mr Hollande’s rightwing predecessor, who once tried to recruit him to join his government.
3) He was born in Barcelona to a Catalan artist father and a Swiss-Italian mother and only became a French citizen in 1982. But in spite of his immigrant roots, he has been a controversial advocate of tough curbs on immigration as interior minister since 2012. His push to deport of a 15-year Gypsy girl with a bad school attendance record prompted a backlash from the left and left Mr Hollande looking indecisive and weak.
4) Mr Valls was against the 35-hour maximum working week (championed by Ms Aubry). When running for the Socialist nomination for the 2012 presidential election, he opposed the reinstatement of retirement at 60(lifted up to 62 by Sarkozy, and then brought down by Hollande) and the creation of hundreds of thousands of state subsidised jobs for the young (both promised by Mr Hollande). Mr Valls argued for tough fiscal discipline and higher sales taxes in return for lower social security charges.
5) In the 2011 Socialist presidential primary, he won only 6 per cent of the vote. But as interior minister, he was regularly ranked as France’s most popular politician.
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