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France’s Socialist Party Is ‘Dead,’ Manuel Valls, Ex-Premier, Says Manuel Valls, Ex-Premier of France, Seeks to Run With Macron Movement
(about 9 hours later)
PARIS — Manuel Valls, who served as prime minister as part of the Socialist government under the departing French president, François Hollande, said on Tuesday that the party was “dead” and expressed his desire to run for Parliament as part of the movement formed by the new leader, Emmanuel Macron. PARIS — In a sign of the political shake-up in France, former Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Tuesday declared his party, the Socialists, dead and announced that he was running in parliamentary elections with the centrist movement of President-elect Emmanuel Macron.
Officials from Mr. Macron’s party, La République En Marche, responded tepidly to Mr. Valls’s statement. “Support doesn’t necessarily translate into a nomination,” said Jean-Paul Delevoye, head of the commission in charge of assessing parliamentary candidates. But in another sign of a vastly transformed electoral landscape days after Mr. Macron’s victory over the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, Mr. Macron’s En Marche! movement said it might not have room for Mr. Valls.
Mr. Valls told RTL radio that he wanted to run in the department of Essonne, south of Paris, when all 577 seats in France’s lower chamber come up for election on June 11 and 18. “I must have missed his application,” Benjamin Griveaux, an En Marche spokesman, said ironically on Europe1 radio on Tuesday morning. “The procedure is the same for everyone, former prime minister included,” he said, before adding that Mr. Valls still had 24 hours to apply before applications closed.
Mr. Macron, who has said he plans to field candidates for all the seats, will announce his roster on Thursday. He will be sworn in as president on Sunday. The confusion put En Marche leaders in a quandary over whether to show deference to an internationally known and once-powerful political figure, while asserting themselves as a new generation determined to scrap the sort of customs and deals that perpetuated the country’s elite and alienated many voters.
Mr. Valls, a center-leaning politician who favors relaxing France’s tight labor protections, lost to Benoît Hamon in the Socialist Party’s presidential primary. After that, he threw his support to Mr. Macron before the presidential election. Mr. Valls, who broke with the Socialists to support Mr. Macron in the election, said on RTL radio Tuesday morning that he would be a “candidate for the presidential majority,” and that he wished to run under the centrist party’s banner in the June elections.
Mr. Hamon came in a distant fifth in the first round of France’s election, capturing just over 6 percent of the vote, the Socialist Party’s worst result since 1969. The poor showing prompted a fierce debate within the party about whether to stick with Mr. Hamon’s left-wing platform or to switch back to the more centrist views of Mr. Valls and his allies. He said that while he would remain a member of the Socialists, that party was dead and “behind us,” and the priority now was providing Mr. Macron with “a large and coherent majority” in Parliament.
A Socialist Party official, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, emphasized on Tuesday that it was “impossible” to remain a member and run for office under La République En Marche’s banner. If some people want to leave and go apart, he said, “They can do so and let us work.” “I think he has his chances,” Christophe Castaner, another spokesman for En Marche and a former Socialist lawmaker, said on Franceinfo radio, before adding that Mr. Valls would not be offered special treatment. “The republic of privileges is behind us,” Mr. Castaner said.
Mr. Valls said Mr. Macron’s victory on Sunday over the far-right leader Marine Le Pen was a blow to populism across Europe that gave a “terrific” image of France to countries abroad. Jean-Paul Delevoye, the head of the party’s nominating committee, told BFMTV that a candidate had already been selected to run in Mr. Valls’s district, in the Essonne department. “We will now have to see if that candidate remains or not,” Mr. Delevoye said.
“The old parties are dying or are already dead,” Mr. Valls said. “I’m not living with regrets. I want Emmanuel Macron, his government and his majority to succeed, for France. I will be a candidate in the presidential majority and I wish to join his movement.” More than 15,000 people have applied to En Marche to run in the 577 voting districts. Applicants had to send a cover letter and a résumé through an online platform.
If Mr. Macron’s party performs poorly, he could be forced to form a coalition government, a common occurrence in many European countries but unusual in France. The episode highlighted the challenge facing Mr. Macron — namely, cobbling a majority in Parliament.
Although the president-elect has expressed confidence that he will gain the 289 seats needed to choose a prime minister and implement his policies without having to negotiate with the other parties, polls show he may fall short.
Richard Ferrand, the secretary general of Mr. Macron’s movement, said at a news conference on Monday that the names of the party’s candidates would be announced on Thursday.
Mr. Valls’s statement did not go over well with some of his colleagues, and some questioned whether he could remain in the Socialist Party if he wound up sitting with Mr. Macron’s organization in Parliament. “I’m a reformist and a progressive, but also a Socialist attached to his party and its values,” Luc Carvounas, a lawmaker, said on Twitter. “No, Manuel Valls, I won’t follow you this time.”
For the first time since 1958, none of the mainstream parties qualified for the second round of the presidential election.
The Socialists have been reeling after their candidate, Benoît Hamon, received only 6.4 percent of the vote in the election’s first round. Mr. Hamon became the party’s candidate earlier this year by defeating Mr. Valls in a stunning upset.
On Tuesday, the Socialists held internal talks to develop a new platform.
And many within Ms. Le Pen’s National Front were questioning its nationalist, anti-European Union platform after her defeat. Critics included her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen.
Ms. Maréchal-Le Pen, who represents the southern department of Var in Parliament, made a surprise announcement on Friday evening when she said she would not stand for re-election in June.
Vaucluse Matin-Le Dauphiné Libéré, a regional newspaper, published excerpts from a letter in which Ms. Maréchal-Le Pen said “personal and political reasons” had motivated her decision, including the will to devote more time to her daughter.
“We have to prove to the French people that there are elected officials free and selfless, who refuse to cling to a status and their financial compensations whatever the cost,” Ms. Maréchal-Le Pen wrote. “I’m not giving up on the political fight for good.”