The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, has insisted he will not resign amid growing government infighting over who will become the Socialist presidential candidate to face the right’s François Fillon and the Front National’s Marine Le Pen.



The fractured Socialist party is under pressure to unite its warring factions against the right’s newly nominated candidate Fillon, a former prime minister whose platform of traditionalist, Catholic social conservatism and sweeping cuts to the French state has infuriated the left who call him the “French Margaret Thatcher”.

But the Socialists are in such disarray that polls show they are unlikely to make it through to the second-round runoff in the French presidential election next May, which is currently predicted to be fought between Fillon and the far-right Front National’s Le Pen.

François Hollande, the least popular French president since the second world war, is expected to announce in the coming days whether or not he will run for a second term. He is reportedly seriously considering running for re-election despite a satisfaction rating so low it recently dropped to just 4%.

Some in Hollande’s party fear any re-election attempt is doomed to fail. Hollande would have to take part in the left’s open primary race to choose its presidential candidate, which is to be held in January and in which he is likely to be roundly attacked.

But every French president in the last 50 years has attempted to get re-elected for a second term and Hollande does not want to be the exception. He was reportedly boosted by a recent slight drop in the number of unemployed. But his unpopularity shows no signs of changing: he is accused of lacking authority and coherence, zigzagging over policy decisions from tax increases to pro-business reform, failing to kickstart the sluggish economy and failing to protect France from a series of devastating terrorist attacks.

Marine Le Pen. Photograph: Richard Bouhet/AFP/Getty Images

This weekend, Valls, once Hollande’s most loyal ally, tried to block him from running again. Convinced that the president’s public image was an insurmountable problem that risked wrecking the Socialist party, Valls said he was preparing to run himself.

He told the Journal du Dimanche: “In the face of the disarray, the doubt, the disappointment, the idea that the left has no chance, I want to dispel the notion that defeat is inevitable.”

Valls’s comments immediately sparked speculation of his resignation and a government crisis at a moment when France remains under a state of emergency, still facing a major terrorist threat. The comments also increased speculation that Hollande was floundering and unable to control his government.

But after a two-hour lunch with the president at the Elysée on Monday, Valls appeared to back down. He issued a statement to Agence-France Presse, saying he wanted to remain head of the government. “There cannot be and there will never be an institutional crisis,” he said. He added that, particularly at a moment when France faced a terrorist threat, there must not be a political confrontation in a primary race between the president and the prime minister.

The left’s open primary race looks likely to be tense.

Hollande’s pro-business reformist stance has been attacked by those further left on the party. But the leftwing rebel movement inside the party, including several former government ministers, has never united behind one person and is fielding four candidates, including the ambitious former economy minister Arnaud Montebourg, who is fiercely critical of Hollande’s pro-business line. He has urged the president not to run again.

Emmanuel Macron, Hollande’s other rebellious former economy minister, has completely broken ranks. He has launched his own independent, centrist, outsider bid for the French presidency, promising to lead a people’s “democratic revolution” against the “vacuous” political system.

Emmanuel Macron during a political rally in Strasbourg. Photograph: Jean-Francois Badias/AP

The hard-left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who this weekend won the backing of the French Communist party, is also likely to draw votes away from the Socialists.

The latest polling from Harris Interactive shows Hollande or Valls would only get 9% of the first-round presidential vote, with little chance of making it through to the final runoff.

Socialist MPs have raised concerns over the fragmented party, warning that the left could be badly hit in the parliamentary elections that will follow the presidency in June.

Last week, the actors Juliette Binoche and Catherine Deneuve joined dozens of celebrities in rallying to Hollande’s defence. In a newspaper appeal, they criticised attacks on the president, calling for an end to what they termed “Hollande bashing”.

But it did little to calm internal party wrangling.