With the French right settled on its candidate in next year’s presidential election, the left was openly feuding Monday over whether President Francois Hollande or his prime minister should be its standard-bearer.
Manuel Valls, whose loyalty to Hollande was once a badge of honor, was to lunch with his boss on Monday with rumors swirling that he may use the occasion to tender his resignation and seek the presidency.
The meeting comes the day after Francois Fillon, 62, won a solid victory in Sunday’s rightwing primary on an economically liberal platform, while Hollande has yet to announce whether he will stand for re-election.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen was already on the attack on Sunday, saying: “No candidate has ever gone so far in bowing to the ultra-liberal demands of the European Union.”
The vice president of her anti-immigrant, anti-EU National Front followed up Monday by branding Fillon the candidate of “rampant globalization.”
A Fillon presidency would be a continuation of Hollande’s on both immigration and identity issues, Florian Philippot told French television.
Le Pen, the anti-establishment candidate who is hoping to emulate Donald Trump’s shock victory in the United States, is the “candidate of the nation state and patriotism,” Philippot said.
Meanwhile Hollande and Valls were in open conflict, with the prime minister arguing he would be better placed to keep the Socialists in power.
Party spokesman Olivier Faure painted the conflict in stark terms, saying that if Valls runs, “we are in a pretty unusual situation, what you could call a collective suicide.”
“The left will be eliminated for a long time,” he warned on French radio.
On Sunday, Valls gave the clearest indication yet that he intends to challenge his boss, telling the Journal du Dimanche: “I’m getting ready.”
The 54-year-old premier said he would have a better chance given Hollande’s disastrously low approval ratings and the “disarray” on the left.
“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,” he told the weekly.
Valls first broke ranks with Hollande early last month after the publication of an explosive tell-all book in which the president took swipes at judges, the national football team and even his own government’s policies.
In the interview Sunday, Valls blamed the book, titled “A President Shouldn’t Say This,” for the Socialists’ disarray, with polls showing neither he nor Hollande would make it past the first round of the presidential poll on April 23.
Fillon is the front-runner, both for the first round and the May 7 run-off, when he is expected to go on to win handily against Le Pen.

Russian media hails election results
Russian media on Monday hailed the nomination of Fillon, known for his pro-Russian stance in international politics, as the conservative candidate in next year’s presidential elections.
Fillon wants closer ties with the Kremlin and has called for the European Union to lift its sanctions on Moscow imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
“François Fillon is the most pragmatic candidate in international politics,” said the official Russian news agency, Ria-Novosti.
“Fillon lived up to the expectations of the French people,” said Russia’s most popular Channel One. NTV channel said Fillon, 62, who was prime minister from 2007-2012, “was able to gauge the moods of the silent majority” in rural France, “embodying traditional values” in voters’ eyes.

Source: Arab News