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Prime Minister Manuel Valls yesterday announced that he is running for president, warning France's divided left that it risks letting anti-European candidate Marine Le Pen into office.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was named prime minister after Mr Valls presented his resignation to President Francois Hollande ahead of the Socialists' two-round primary on Jan 22 and Jan 29.
Mr Hollande's office said Mr Valls' resignation had been accepted, and that the President "has appointed Bernard Cazeneuve as prime minister".
Mr Cazeneuve, who has overseen the security forces' reaction to a string of Islamist attacks that have killed more than 230 people in France over the past two years, will take control of the Socialist government until legislative elections in June.
"It's time for me to take the next step in my commitment," Mr Valls said in announcing his bid for the presidency on Monday evening in the Paris suburb of Evry, where he was mayor for more than a decade.
A bid by Mr Valls became almost certain last week after Mr Hollande said he would not seek re-election because divisions on the left risk handing the presidency to extremist parties."My bid is a bid for reconciliation. This is my first act for unity."
"I don't want France to live again the trauma it had in 2002 with the far-right in the second round of a presidential election," Mr Valls said.
"Today it's at the doors of power. Its platform would ruin the small people, the retirees, the blue-collar workers. It would expel us from Europe, it would eject us from history."
While Mr Hollande is the first head of state not to seek re-election, no sitting prime minister has won a presidential election: Mr Jacques Chirac in 1988, Mr Edouard Balladur in 1995 and Mr Lionel Jospin in 2002 all failed.
Mr Valls won just 5 per cent support when he ran in the Socialist primary in 2011. Two former members of Mr Valls' government who quit over policy disagreements - Mr Arnaud Montebourg and Mr Benoit Hamon - are also running in the primary, while former economy minister Emmanuel Macron will be fighting for moderate voters as an independent.
Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon is running his independent campaign to the left of mainstream Socialists.
(THE STRAITS TIMES)
