Former French prime minister Manuel Valls on Wednesday endorsed the presidential bid of centrist Emmanuel Macron, becoming the most high-profile Socialist to back the ex-banker over the party’s own nominee.
His support was seen as a mixed blessing for Macron, giving him the backing of a leading politician, but weakening his claim to represent a break with the past.
Macron quit the Socialist government last year to form his own movement, En Marche, saying he wanted to shake up the political class.
Photo: Reuters
Valls’ nod comes less than a month before the first round of the election on April 23, in which polls show Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen running neck-and-neck.
The former prime minister cited the “risks” of a Le Pen victory in confirming his support for Macron, in an interview with BFM TV.
Le Pen pounced on the defection as proof of her claim that Macron is effectively a surrogate for outgoing French President Francois Hollande.
It showed Macron was a “simple cog in a grand plan to save Hollande’s entourage,” the National Front leader wrote on her Web site.
Conservative candidate Francois Fillon put it more simply.
“Emmanuel Macron is Francois Hollande,” he said.
Macron, 39, thanked Valls for his support, but said it did not mean the former prime minister would land a job in his Cabinet if he won, stressing that his goal was to “refresh the faces” of French politics.
He has said his door is open to all who want to join his economically liberal pro-EU movement — but that he will not be beholden to big-name endorsers.
Valls’ choice of Macron is a further blow for the struggling Socialist candidate, Benoit Hamon, 49, who beat Valls to the party’s nomination in a January primary.
Asked how he would vote, Valls said he would back his former economy minister “because I think you should not take any risks for the republic. So, I will vote for Emmanuel Macron.”
His remarks were seen as a reference to a possible win by 48-year-old Le Pen — a prospect that the upstart Macron, a relative newcomer to politics, is seen as best placed to prevent.
Macron is currently tipped to easily beat the anti-immigration, anti-EU Le Pen in the second round election run-off on May 7, but after Britain’s shock vote to quit the EU and Donald Trump’s surprise election as US president, no one is ruling out another upset.
Hamon won the Socialist primary on a tide of disaffection with the party’s centrist lurch under Hollande and Valls, but he has failed since to rally party heavyweights around his bid.
On Wednesday evening, Hamon asked voters “to punish those who are part of this morbid game” and “turn your backs on these politicians who no longer believe in anything.”
French Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian has also come out in favor of Macron, as has Lyon Mayor Gerard Collomb.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS