PARIS (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday appointed Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve as prime minister until a new president is elected next May.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve attends a news conference for the launching of the new campaign against radicalisation and jihadism at the Hotel Matignon in Paris, France, November 18, 2016. REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen

The appointment followed the resignation of Manuel Valls, who quit to run for president after Hollande himself decided against seeking a second term.

Cazeneuve will play caretaker ahead of the next year’s vote, where Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigrant, anti-European Union National Front hopes to repeat anti-establishment upsets seens earlier this year in Britain, the United States, and this week in Italy.

“The world has changed drastically in a matter of months,” Jean-Marie Le Guen, a minister and close ally of Valls, told RTL radio. “The extreme right is on the threshold of power. The right is more brutal than anything we’ve ever seen.”

Italian voters last weekend rejected constitutional reforms proposed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, forcing him to resign and opening period of political uncertainty there.

That followed the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and a referendum where Britons chose to quit the European Union.

As interior minister since April 2014, Cazeneuve has dealt with Islamist militant attacks that have killed more than 230 people since January 2015. He has also overseen imposition of emergency rule imposed in their wake.

Cazeneuve, 53, a former Europe and budget minister, is known as ‘The Cardinal’ because of his distant, dead-pan manner.

Polls so far suggest that the Left faces humiliation in next year’s presidential election after five years in power. The polls suggest a vote boiling down to a duel between conservative candidate Francois Fillon and Le Pen, with Fillon winning.

Valls first needs to win a Socialist primary in January against tough competition from more traditional leftists.

Related Coverage Senior Socialist lawmaker named new French interior minister

An Ifop-Fiducial opinion poll published on Tuesday suggested no left-wing candidate would go far in the presidential vote. It gave Valls a score of 10 percent, eliminating him ahead of a Fillon-Le Pen second-round duel that it saw Fillon winning with 65 percent of the vote.

Hollande said his job in the time left was to protect France. “And protect things I deem vital: cohesion, a way of living, freedom, and a social welfare model that unites us.”

Bruno le Roux was named to replace Casenove as interior minister.</s>Bernard Cazeneuve became France’s new prime minister on Tuesday, shifting over from his job as interior minister after Manuel Valls stepped down as prime minister to focus on running for the presidency.

Valls resigned a day after announcing his candidacy in the wake of French President Francois Hollande’s decision not to run for a second term.

“I was a happy prime minister” despite challenges that included terror attacks, Valls said in a ceremony transferring power. “I leave in calm ... (because Cazeneuve) is a man of state.”

Both men made clear that coping with bloody terror attacks and facing down threats bonded them as they worked hand-in-hand. Cazeneuve also praised the “friendship” between himself and Valls.

Valls hopes to unite Socialists and give the left a chance to stay at the Elysee Palace in France’s two-round presidential election in April and May. Current opinion polls, however, suggest that the second round could pit Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front, against conservative Francois Fillon.

The 53-year-old Cazeneuve is a close ally of Hollande and became a popular figure as the champion of measures tackling extremism.

Cazeneuve, appointed interior minister in 2014, faced a series of attacks in France that claimed more than 200 lives since January 2015. In total, he championed three counterterrorism laws and one intelligence law. He has also been in charge of implementing France’s state of emergency following the Paris attacks that killed 130 people in November 2015.

Cazeneuve said his three-fold goal as prime minister will be “to protect, progress, prepare the future.” He acknowledged that his mandate will be short, but said “each day is useful. Each day counts.”

Bruno Le Roux, the head of the Socialist group in Parliament’s lower house, was appointed as France’s new interior minister.

Valls is the top contender in the primary next month for Socialist candidates and their allies but he will face tough competition from former Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg and former Education Minister Benoit Hamon, who both back more left-leaning policies.

Valls is known for his outspoken, authoritarian style and his tough views on immigration and security. He has been harshly criticized by other party members after championing tough labour reforms and endorsing a controversial ban last summer on the Islamic “burkini” swimsuit.</s>Bernard Cazeneuve, currently French interior minister, will replace Manuel Valls as the country’s new prime minister, president Francois Hollande’s office said on Tuesday.

“He’s a strong personality, with experience of state affairs,” said a source in the president’s entourage, commenting on Mr Cazeneuve’s appointment.

Mr Valls is stepping down in order to seek the Socialist Party’s nomination to be its presidential candidate in the 2017 election.</s>French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was named the country’s new Prime Minister on Tuesday after Manuel Valls resigned to seek the Socialist nomination in next year’s presidential election.

Mr. Cazeneuve, who has overseen the security forces’ reaction to a string of jihadist attacks that have killed more than 230 people in France over the past two years, will head the Socialist government until the election in May.

He was named to the post after President Francois Hollande accepted Mr. Valls’ resignation.

The government will work “up to the end, to its last day, to prepare the future”, Mr. Hollande told reporters on Tuesday.

Mr. Cazeneuve (53) has served in various government roles, including budget and Europe minister before becoming Interior Minister in April 2014. “He has a good knowledge of the security issues and the fight against terrorism, which are the government’s priorities,” said an aide to Mr. Hollande.

Mr. Cazeneuve will be replaced in the Interior Ministry by Bruno Le Roux, currently the leader of the Socialists in the lower house of Parliament.</s>PARIS: French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was appointed as the new prime minister on Tuesday after Manuel Valls resigned to seek the Socialist nomination in next year’s presidential election.

Cazeneuve, who has overseen the security forces’ reaction to a string of jihadist attacks that have killed more than 230 people in France over the past two years, will take control of the Socialist government until May’s election.

He was named prime minister after President Francois Hollande accepted Valls’s resignation early Tuesday.

Valls, who had been prime minister for the past two and a half years, announced on Monday he would step down to try to rally the fractured French left ahead of a primary in January.

In a combative speech, the 54-year-old Valls vowed to take the fight to the conservative opposition and the far-right National Front, who are both ahead of the Socialists in the polls.

His announcement came four days after Hollande said he would bow out after a single term, paving the way for Valls to try to become the left’s new standard bearer.

“My candidacy is one of reconciliation,” Valls, himself a former interior minister, said in a speech from his political base in the tough Paris suburb of Evry.

He warned of the risk of far-right leader Marine Le Pen pulling off a repeat of France’s 2002 electoral upset when her father Jean-Marie Le Pen edged out the Socialist candidate for a place in the presidential runoff.

Le Pen’s nationalist policies would “ruin the working class”, he said.

Polls show Marine Le Pen winning or coming second in the opening round of the election on April 23 but being defeated by the conservative candidate Francois Fillon in May’s second round.

Valls attacked the self-declared Thatcherite Fillon, accusing him of rehashing “the old recipes of the 1980s” by promising to cut spending and social programs.

“We’re told that Francois Fillon is the next president of the Republic. Nothing is set in stone,” he said defiantly.

Many on the left see him as too rightwing after he used decrees to force through labor reforms and called for dual-national terror convicts to be stripped of their French nationality.

His stern line on secularism and Islam has also turned off many lifelong Socialists, with some party veterans saying they might not support him.

Last summer, he waded into the debate on the Islamic “burkini”, declaring the full-body swimsuit “not compatible” with French values.

But the blackest mark on his candidacy could be his government’s bleak economic record.

Le Pen has dismissed him as the unpopular Hollande’s “double”.

Valls faces a challenge from at least seven other candidates in the two-round primary on January 22 and 29.

Polls show him winning the nomination but trailing in the presidential race, dragged down by competition from business-friendly former economy minister Emmanuel Macron, an independent, and the fiery hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon.

When Valls last sought the Socialist nomination five years ago, he garnered only 5.6 percent. AFP</s>French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Monday announced his candidacy for next year’s presidential election, saying he will step down from his current job to focus on his bid.

Valls will face other contenders in the Socialist primary next month.

“I want to give everything for France,” the 54-year-old said in a speech in the Paris suburb of Evry, adding he would quit as prime minister on Tuesday.

Valls’ announcement comes a few days after unpopular president Francois Hollande said he will not run again, in the hope of giving the Socialist party a chance to win in the April-May presidential election with a different candidate.

Valls said he wants to defeat the far-right, led by National Front leader Marine Le Pen, and conservative candidate Francois Fillon.

A centre-leaning Socialist with a tough line on security and immigration, Valls is somewhat more popular than his boss, but their party is in deep disarray over the government’s handling of the economy.

He is now considered the favourite for the Socialist primary, but needs to overcome divisions within the party.

“My candidacy is that of conciliation, of reconciliation,” Valls promised.

Former economy minister Arnaud Montebourg and former education minister Benoit Hamon, who have joined a group of Socialist rebels opposed to Valls’ pro-business policies, have announced their candidacy, alongside other lower-profile candidates.</s>PARIS — Manuel Valls, France's Socialist prime minister, announced Monday evening that he will run for the French presidency in next spring's election, promising that France would remain a bulwark of progress amid a global turn to the right.

"I want an independent France, inflexible in its values," he said, "to face the China of Xi Jinping, the Russia of Vladimir Putin, the America of Donald Trump, the Turkey of [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan."

His announcement came just days after François Hollande, the most unpopular president in modern French history, said he would not seek reelection in 2017, joining the ranks of an increasingly abandoned European political establishment.

In the wake of Britain's vote last year to leave the European Union, the presidential election victory of Donald Trump and, most recently, Sunday's constitutional reform referendum in Italy, France's 2017 election is widely seen as a potential next chapter in a revolt against the West's established order.

On Monday, Valls pledged to launch a strong leftist defense against the rising tide of Marine Le Pen, the savvy leader of the National Front, France's far-right populist party, which has risen steadily in the polls. He said he would step down as prime minister Tuesday to seek the Socialist presidential nomination in a primary in January.

 

 If he wins the primary, Valls will also have to contend with François Fillon, a more moderate conservative candidate who advocates a free-market economic platform but shares many of Le Pen's anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments.

The French left, once the undisputed bedrock of national politics and a principal architect of the European Union, has fallen in esteem to such a degree that winning the presidency in 2017 is almost inconceivable, analysts say. By one poll, the presidential approval rating of Hollande, the Socialist incumbent, has dropped to a minuscule 4 percent.

As an explanation, analysts generally cite France's stubbornly high unemployment rate and a wave of devastating terrorist attacks that have claimed some 230 lives here in the last two years. In the wake of those attacks, Hollande's Socialist government has struggled to project an image of strength, responding with measures that critics say are primarily concerned with saving face instead of enacting real change.

In his address Monday evening, Valls rejected this assumption, insisting with dramatic emphasis that the left still has a viable chance to win the presidency.

"I'm told that the left has no chance, but nothing is written," he said. "That it will never come together, that the extreme right is qualified for office, but nothing is written. That Fillon is already the next president of the republic, but nothing is written."

He continued: "The left is big and beautiful when it speaks to all the French, when it gathers together, when its destiny is entwined with that of France. France needs the left!"

But the French left is deeply divided within its own ranks, largely thanks to Hollande's controversial proposal to strip French nationality from convicted terrorists who hold dual citizenship. Many on the left insisted that the proposal would enshrine a legal distinction between citizens who are supposed to remain equal before the law, and it was ultimately abandoned. But the broader rift inside the party has remained.

Valls, who has sought to project a certain tough-guy swagger as prime minister, has been a constant fixture in that internal struggle, especially vis-à-vis France's Muslim community, the country's largest minority group. During a furor over the "burkini" this past summer, for instance, when some 30 French towns banned the modest swimsuit from public beaches, he was among the towns' loudest defenders.

French courts have since overturned many of the burkini bans in the jurisdictions that passed them.

But Valls called the burkini, designed to allow Muslim women to enjoy the beach while respecting traditional dress codes, a "provocation," insisting that the garment was an affront to France's secular values. In response, Muslim leaders quickly accused him of hypocrisy. Supporters of French secularism, they pointed out, do not object that virtually all of France's public holidays are Christian in origin.

"I note the division on the left," he said, "but until when will we endure this spectacle?"</s>The announcement Monday came during a news conference in Evry, where Valls previously served as mayor before being elected to the National Assembly. Prior to serving as prime minister, Valls was France's interior minister.

Moments after announcing his candidacy, Valls said that his aim in running was to create an independent France, "inflexible on its values facing China of (President) Xi Jinping, Russia of (President Vladimir) Putin, (President-elect) Donald Trump's America, Turkey of (President Recep) Erdogan."

If successful, Valls will likely face Francois Fillon of the Republican Party and Marine Le Pen of the far-right Front National in the first round of the presidential election next spring.</s>Valls will run against others for the Socialist Party's candidacy, and if successful, he will likely face Francois Fillon of the Republican Party and Marine Le Pen of the far-right Front National in the first round of the presidential election next spring.

The announcement Monday came during a news conference in Evry, where Valls previously served as mayor before being elected to the National Assembly. Prior to serving as prime minister, Valls was France's interior minister.

Moments after announcing his candidacy, Valls said that his aim in running was to create an independent France, "inflexible on its values facing China of Xi Jinping, Russia of Putin, Donald Trump's America, Turkey of Erdogan," referring to the leaders of those countries.</s>PARIS (JTA) — Although his country is entering one of the most dramatic election campaigns in recent memory, Isy Morgensztern had no intention of exercising his right to vote.

A left-wing Ashkenazi Jewish filmmaker from Paris, Morgensztern was too disappointed with the ruling Socialists under French President Francois Hollande to vote for them a second time in elections scheduled for April. But he is too disgusted by the Muslim baiting of the center- and far-right candidates to vote for them, either.

That changed on Monday, when Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced his candidacy just two days after Hollande said he would not seek a second term, citing polls showing he is the least popular French president in decades.

Many French Jews admire Valls, 54, for his tough stance against anti-Semitism. The Spanish-born prime minister, who once cited his marriage to the French Jewish musician Anne Gravoin in proclaiming an “eternal bond” with her people, has distinguished himself from other French leaders by calling anti-Zionism a form of anti-Semitism. And he has led a relentless legal assault on the anti-Semitic comedian and provocateur Dieudonne M’bala M’bala.

These moves and others have earned him a hero status among France’s Jewish community of 500,000. More significantly for his presidential prospects, his reputation as a hardliner with a strong law-and-order agenda means he is widely seen as the left’s best hope for remaining in power amid a surge in right-wing popularity, fueled in part by terrorist attacks that have claimed hundreds of lives over the past year.

Valls “is not my favorite candidate in this race,” Morgensztern, 69, told JTA Sunday on the sidelines of the annual conference of the CRIF, an umbrella group of French Jewish communities. “He is my only candidate.”

Even before Valls’ candidacy, few French Jews had planned to sit out the vote like Morgensztern. Fearful of a strong showing for the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, some of those interviewed at the CRIF event said they would have reluctantly voted for Hollande, though some resent him for his criticism of Israel and failure to prevent attacks on Jews.

Other said they would vote for the hardliner Francois Fillon, a former prime minister who last week beat favorites Nicolas Sarkozy and Alain Juppe — the previous president and another former prime minister, respectively — in the primaries of the center-right Republicans party (formerly known as UMP).

But Fillon, too, was an uneasy choice for many Jewish supporters. The Republicans nominee infuriated many French Jews with a radio interview last week in which he said that Muslim sectarianism should be fought like French society once fought the Jewish desire “to live in a community that does not respect the laws of the French Republic.” Fillon did not specify what historic era he had in mind.

Still, with Hollande hopelessly trailing in the polls, even those angered by Fillon were preparing to vote for him — if only to block a victory by Le Pen, the president of the far-right National Front Party, which most French Jews still reject as essentially anti-Semitic. Current polls predict an unprecedented showing for National Front, with approximately 25 percent of the vote.

For Le Pen, Fillon’s victory in the primaries may be bad news. His zero tolerance policy toward jihadism and his unassailable right-wing credentials make him a tempting alternative for voters who support hardline policies on Islam and immigration but fear Le Pen’s anti-E.U. agenda and extremist taint.

With Valls, who polls predict will easily win the Socialist primaries in January, French Jews finally have a candidate they can get behind, according to Sophie Atlan, another CRIF conference goer. She, too, would not have voted Socialist if not for Valls, she said. “I don’t trust the left,” Atlan said. “I think we’re talking about a Jewish vote that’s attached specifically to one person: Manuel Valls.”

Under Hollande and Valls, security forces have mounted an unprecedented effort to protect French Jews. Following the slaying of four people by a jihadist last year at a kosher supermarket in Paris, Hollande deployed 12,000 troops and policemen to guard Jewish institutions.

Still, distrust of the left is widely shared among French Jews. Jean-Daniel Levy, a well-known pollster with the market research firm Harris Interactive, told JTA that Jewish voters who self-identify as such are increasingly supporting the right. Richard Prasquier, a former CRIF president, said Jews see Hollande as reluctant to name the religious nature of the problem facing French society and is too critical of Israel.

“He is considered to be [easily] pressured,” Prasquier said of Hollande, recalling that after the kosher shop murders Hollande said that the crime “had nothing to do with the Muslim faith.” Hollande was slammed for the remark and later said he meant to say the killer’s interpretation of Islam was false.

Valls could well revive Jewish support for the left in next year’s election. But his hard line on Islam also has a possible drawback: He might be seen as too far right for Muslims who might otherwise support a Socialist candidate, but not right enough to pull support from voters who might be drawn toward Fillon.

An early poll, conducted just hours before Valls’ officially announced his candidacy, predicted he would receive only 10 percent of the vote in the first round of voting in April, trailing Fillon by a 17.5-point margin. French Jewish voters who vote for Valls in the first round may well find themselves having to choose between Fillon and Le Pen in the final round in May, after all.

Still, for Morgensztern, the filmmaker, Valls’ candidacy is a ray of light in difficult times. Citing his Basque origins, Morgensztern said: “This is a candidate who understands the Jewish people, understands what it’s like to be surrounded by larger enemies, to be oppressed. And that in itself is a big thing.”
Bernard Cazeneuve is announced as the new Prime Minister of France replacing Manuel Valls who is contesting the 2017 French Presidential Election.