Socialist prime minister who has taken a hard line on immigration and crime says he has a duty to keep far right from the Elyseé

France’s socialist prime minister, Manuel Valls, has declared he will be standing down in order to enter the battle to become the left’s candidate in next year’s presidential election.



The announcement had been expected since the president, François Hollande, told the country four days ago that he would not seek a second term in office because he was unable to unite the country’s left.



Valls, 54, formally declared his intention to stand in the Parti Socialiste (PS) primaries in January in Évry, a suburb south of Paris where he was mayor for 11 years.

“Yes, I am a candidate for the presidency,” he said.



“I have the force in me, the willingness to serve my country. It’s more than words; it’s a total conviction. I want to give everything to my country. The time has come to go further.”

Due in large part to the unpopularity of Hollande, whose approval ratings recently sank to 4%, pundits predict that whoever stands as the leftwing candidate next spring will struggle to make it through to the second round.

The widespread assumption is that Marine Le Pen of the far-right Front National (FN) will face François Fillon, the Thatcherite candidate for the centre right Les Républicains, who has said he will cut public sector jobs and wants to end the 35-hour working week.

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But on Monday Valls insisted that France was not willing to embrace Fillon’s proposals, and that the left had time to win back voters. “I want to fight a campaign against the outdated 1980s ideas of the right,” he said. “They say we have no chance … they say Fillon is already president of the republic, but nothing is decided. I want us to drive the left to victory. Give me that force, mobilise!”

Valls announced he would be stepping down as prime minister to concentrate on his presidential campaign from Tuesday morning, and that he had a duty to make sure the far right was kept from the Elysée, by unifying the left.



He outlined leftwing policies to distinguish himself from Fillon. He said: “Everyone must make an effort, me most of all, for unity, conciliation and reconciliation … My duty is to unify.

“I invite the women and men of the left, the progressives, and all the people of France who don’t want the Front National or François Fillon … to join the debate. France needs the left.”

He added: “Globalisation has to be made to work for the people. Workers have to be given back their dignity.”

Current opinion polls suggest Valls would win the two-round primary against his former government rivals Arnaud Montebourg and Benoît Hamon. Montebourg, from the left of the PS, left his ministerial post in 2014 in a reshuffle after falling out with Valls over what he saw as a shift to the economic right.

Valls’s hardline stance on immigration, crime and security have alienated him from many in the party, who see him as too far to the right. Earlier this year he suggested the Muslim headscarf should be banned from universities and that a majority of French people thought Islam was incompatible with the values of the republic.

He has earned a reputation as something of a troublemaker in government, often having to be hauled back into line by the president or party officials after speaking out on controversial issues.

He has sought to position himself as a “social democrat” representing a left that he sees as “pragmatic, reforming and republican”. In an interview with the Nouvel Obs magazine in October 2014 he said the left had to “reinvent itself or die”.

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“We have to finish with this outdated left, the one that is attached to its past and nostalgic history, haunted by the Marxist superego and the memory of the Glorious Thirty. The only valid question is how to orientate modernity to accelerate the emancipation of individuals.

“Ideology has led to disasters but the left that I represent has an ideal: the emancipation of every person.”

In June 2009, while on an official visit as mayor of Évry, he forgot he had a microphone attached to his tie and asked a close adviser to find him “a few whites”. A video of the incident went viral, but Valls turned it to his advantage, saying he wanted “social diversity” and not “ghettos, social segregation and ethnic enclaves”.

In 2011 Valls received just 5% of votes in the PS primaries won by Hollande.

If Valls wins the PS nomination after January’s primary battle, he will face 62-year-old Fillon and Le Pen and other lesser-known candidates in the presidential vote.

The first round will be held at the end of April, with the second round a fortnight later.