Manuel Valls

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This article is about the French politician. For the Spanish composer, see Manuel Valls (composer).

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This name uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Valls and the second or maternal family name is Galfetti.
Manuel Valls
Sommet éco franco-chinois-2485 (cropped).jpg
Prime Minister of France
Assumed office
1 April 2014
President François Hollande
Preceded by Jean-Marc Ayrault
Minister of the Interior
In office
16 May 2012 – 1 April 2014
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault
Preceded by Claude Guéant
Succeeded by Bernard Cazeneuve
Mayor of Évry
In office
18 March 2001 – 24 May 2012
Preceded by Christian Olivier
Succeeded by Francis Chouat
Member of the National Assembly
from Essonne's 1st district
Assumed office
19 June 2002
Preceded by Jacques Guyard
Personal details
Born Manuel Carlos Valls Galfetti
(1962-08-13) 13 August 1962 (age 61)
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Political party Socialist Party
Spouse(s) Nathalie Soulié (Divorced)
Anne Gravoin (2010–present)
Children 4
Parents Xavier Valls
Luisangela Galfetti
Residence Hôtel Matignon
Alma mater Pantheon-Sorbonne University

Manuel Carlos Valls Galfetti (French: [ma.nɥɛl vals], Catalan: [mənuˈɛl ˈβaʎs], Spanish: [maˈnwel ˈβals]; born 13 August 1962) is a French politician who has been the Prime Minister of France since 31 March 2014. He was the Minister of the Interior from 2012 to 2014. He is a member of the Socialist Party.

Born in Barcelona to a Spanish father and a Swiss mother, Valls was Mayor of Évry from 2001 to 2012 and was first elected to the National Assembly of France in 2002. He is regarded as belonging to the Socialist Party's social liberal wing, sharing common orientations with Scandinavian-style social democracy and Blairism.

Early life and family

Valls' paternal grandfather was the editor-in-chief of a Republican newspaper in Spain. During the Spanish Civil War, he sheltered priests who were fleeing from the Red Terror.[1] After Francisco Franco's victory, he was forced out of his job as editor. Valls' father was the Barcelona-born painter Xavier Valls (1923–2006).[2][3]

In the late 1940s, Xavier Valls moved to Paris and met his future wife, Luisangela Galfetti, a Ticino-born Swiss citizen, the sister of architect Aurelio Galfetti. In 1955, he won the prize for best still life in the third Spanish-American Art Biennial inaugurated by Franco.[4] Manuel Valls was born in Barcelona and lived there until he moved to France as a teenager.

Political career

In 1980, aged 17, Valls joined the French Socialist Party (PS) to support Michel Rocard. Within the PS, he defended the 'Second left' (La Deuxième gauche), rather than the more pragmatic left of François Mitterrand. (The Second left could be compared to the 1960s 'New Left' – opposed to party lines and bureaucracy, anti-statist, supportive of anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist movements worldwide, favoring direct action politics.) While studying history at the Pantheon-Sorbonne University, Tolbiac campus, he was a member of the UNEF-ID, a progressive students' union.[citation needed]

In 1980, he met two other student supporters of Rocard with whom he became close friends: Alain Bauer (Bauer is the godfather of Valls' second son), and Stéphane Fouks.[5][6][7]

From 1983-86, Valls was a parliamentary attaché for the member for Ardèche, Robert Chapuis. In 1986 he was elected to the regional Council for the Île-de-France and served until 1992. In 1988, he became head of the Socialist Party in Argenteuil-Bezons and deputy mayor. From 1988-91 he was responsible for function of the Prime Minister's Cabinet. From 1991-93 he was an inter-ministerial delegate to the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville. In 1995, he became the Secretary of Communications for the national Socialist Party and in 1997 responsible for communications and media relations for the Prime Minister's Cabinet. In 1998 he was elected vice president of the regional Council for the Île-de-France which he held until 2002. While vice president of the regional Council, he was also elected as mayor of Évry in 2001, until 2012. In 2002, he became the Deputy for the First Electoral District in Essonne and in 2008, the President of the tri-city jurisdiction Évry-Centre-Essonne.[8]

In the 2008 elections to choose the head of the Socialist Party, Valls supported the former presidential candidate Ségolène Royal over her former civil-union partner François Hollande, who eventually won. The election results were controversial. There were irregularities and claims of electoral fraud in the strongholds of North and Seine-Maritime, which favored the candidate Martine Aubry.[citation needed]

On 13 June 2009, Valls announced his intention to run for the Socialist Presidential Primary in 2011 for the 2012 election. On 30 June 2009 he founded a political organization with the slogan "The Left Needs Optimism," to provide legal and financial support the Socialist Primary candidates. On 7 June 2011, he confirmed his candidacy for the Socialist primary. On the evening of the first primary round, 9 October 2011, Valls achieved only 6% of the vote, just behind Ségolène Royal. He was therefore eliminated. On the night of his defeat, he endorsed François Hollande for the second round. Valls was appointed Minister of the Interior in the Ayrault Cabinet in May 2012.[citation needed]

Prime Minister

In March 2014, following major losses to centre-right and extreme-right political parties in French municipal elections, President François Hollande appointed Valls to the post of Prime Minister. He replaced Jean-Marc Ayrault who had resigned earlier that day.[9][10] The Valls Cabinet was formed on 2 April 2014, consisting of 16 ministers from the Socialist Party and one minister from the Radical Party of the Left.[citation needed]

Political beliefs

Valls has been classified as being on the "right wing" of the Socialist Party, with a similar approach to the German and Dutch Social Democratic Parties. During the 2011 presidential primary, he defined himself as "Blairiste" or "Clintonien", and described his position as "in the tradition of Pierre Mendès France, Lionel Jospin and Michel Rocard". As prime minister he openly said that he liked the comparison with the new Italian premier, Matteo Renzi, another thirdway-er.[11][12]

Valls advocates an "economically realistic" political speech without "demagoguery". He voices his dissent in the party by his vision of individual responsibilities ("The new hope that the Left must carry is individual self-realization: to allow everyone to become that which they are"[13]) and his positions against a system where some people live only from national solidarity. Describing himself as "reformist rather than revolutionary," he wants to "reconcile the left to the liberal approach".[12]

Immigration

In his book To Put the Old Socialism to Rest ... And Finally be Left-Wing, he declared support for immigration "quotas".[citation needed]

On Sunday 9 June 2009, while visiting a market in Évry, of which he was then mayor, he was caught on camera suggesting that the presence of more white people would give a better image of the city.[14]

In October 2013, his stance in the Dibrani case met with high public approval, with a global approval rate of 74% (57% approval rate from the left, and 89% from the right).[15]

Retirement age

Valls supported the extension of the years of required pension-contribution to 41, as advocated and achieved by the Sarkozy administration. The extension means that due to the maximum mandatory retirement age of 62, only immigrants receiving the right to legally work around the age of 21 would be allowed to receive the pension to which they would have contributed throughout their careers. "The role of the Left is not to deny democratic changes, nor to hide the size of deficits ... The Left can advocate an à la carte pension system and increasing the pay-in period."[16]

Views on religion

In 2002, as mayor of Évry, he opposed a branch of the national grocery store chain Franprix, located in a predominately Muslim neighborhood, deciding to sell only halal-certified meat/products and products that do not contain alcohol.[17]

As parliamentarian and interior minister, he took strong stances on secularism, supported crackdowns on the wearing of niqābs in public and defended a nursery which sacked an employee for demanding to wear one at work. He had harsh words for anti-gay marriage protesters.[18] When Catholics protested against "Golgota Picnic", he supported the theatre director in the name of freedom of speech.[19]

When Dieudonné's quenelle gesture became viral in 2013, Valls said he would consider "all legal means" to ban Dieudonné's "public meetings", given that he "addresses in an obvious and insufferable manner the memory of victims of the Shoah."[20]

Cannabis

On 12 October 2009, Valls expressed "total disagreement" with a proposal by Daniel Vaillant for decriminalization or legalization of cannabis. The plan involved depriving traffickers of a source of income. Valls argued, "The question of drugs that produce considerable damage in some neighbourhoods and nourish the underground economy, cannot be handled this way. There is a certain number of rules that cannot be removed."[21]

Political offices

Governmental functions

  • Prime Minister: Since 31 March 2014
  • Minister of Interior: May 2012 to March 2014

Elected offices

  • Member of the National Assembly of France for Essonne (1st constituency): 2002–2012 (Became minister in May). Elected in 2002, reelected in 2007.
  • Vice-president of the Regional Council of Île-de-France : 1998–2002 (Resignation).
  • Regional councillor of Île-de-France: 1986–2002 (Resignation).
  • Mayor of Évry: 2001–2012 (Resignation). Reelected in 2008.
  • Municipal councillor of Évry : Since 2001. Reelected in 2008.
  • Deputy-mayor of Argenteuil: 1989–1998 (Resignation).
  • Municipal councillor of Argenteuil: 1989–1998 (Resignation).

Personal life

In 1987, Valls married Nathalie Soulié, with whom he had 4 children before divorcing. On 1 July 2010, he married[22] Anne Gravoin, a violinist and winner of the Conservatoire de Paris' prestigious Premier Prix for Violin and Chamber Orchestra.[23][24]

Owing to his family background, Manuel Valls is fluent in French, Spanish, Catalan and Italian.[25]

Publications

  • Les habits neufs de la gauche, éditions Robert Laffont, 2006
  • La laïcité en face, a dialog with Virginie Malabard, Éditions Desclée de Brouwer, 2005
  • Pour en finir avec le vieux socialisme... et être enfin de gauche, a dialog with Claude Askolovitch, Robert Laffont, 2008

References

  1. ↑ L'homme qui veut être le Sarko de la gauche, Le Point, #1820, 2 August 2007, pp. 24–27.(French)
  2. ↑ Biographie de Xavier Valls on claude-bernard.com website
  3. ↑ Ana María Preckler, Historia del arte universal de los siglos XIX y XX, Editorial Complutense, 2003, vol. II, p. 509; ISBN 9788474917079.(Spanish)
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Fraysse, Bertrand, "Passeur", challenges.fr, 29 November 2007.(French)
  6. ↑ Tchakaloff, Gaël. "Alain Bauer", Le Nouvel économiste no. 1292. vol. 4. 10 March 2005.(French)
  7. ↑ Alain Bauer and Emmanuel Ratier. "L'écrivain nationaliste: Faits & documents". no. 98. vol 15. 30 October 2000. (French) describes the relationship between the two men, and the work of Nathalie Soulié, Valls ex-wife, as the secretary for AB Associates, a personal security company founded by Bauer in the 1990s.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Retraites: Valls appelle à un "pacte national"; accessed 25 April 2015.(French)
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Ira, Kumaran and Lantier, Alex. After French regional election victory: Socialist Party leaders call for austerity policies, World Socialist website, 2 April 2010; retrieved 24 February 2013.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Stéphanie Le Bars, "Manuel Valls, partisan d'une « laïcité exigeante", Le Monde, 1 April 2014. (French)
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Manuel Valls va se marier en juillet, Le Nouvel Observateur, 10 January 2010.(French)
  23. ↑ "La table de chevet de... Manuel Valls", Les Échos, nb60, 15 February 2008, p. 50. (French)
  24. ↑ Manuel Valls ouvre les fenêtres de la musique, Radio classique, 16 May 2008. (French)
  25. ↑ qu'il faut savoir de Manuel Valls, lejdd.fr, 16 May 2012. (French)

External links

Political offices
Preceded by
Christian Olivier
 Mayor of Évry
2001–2012		 Succeeded by
Francis Chouat
Preceded by Minister of the Interior
2012–2014		 Succeeded by
Bernard Cazeneuve
Preceded by Prime Minister of France
2014–present		 Incumbent
Order of precedence
Preceded by as President of the Republic Order of precedence of France
as Prime Minister		 Succeeded by
Gérard Larcher
as President of the Senate
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