Benoit Hamon holds a rose following the first results of the primary's second round on January 29, 2017

France's divided Socialists picked leftwinger Benoit Hamon as their presidential nominee Sunday, in the latest twist of a roller-coaster election race that has seen conservative frontrunner Francois Fillon engulfed in scandal.

Near definitive results from a Socialist primary runoff vote Sunday showed Hamon beating his centrist rival Manuel Valls, a former prime minister, with 58.72 percent of the vote in a clear victory for the left-wing of the party.

"Our country needs the left but a modern, innovative left turned towards the future," the 49-year-old Hamon told cheering supporters in a victory speech.

His triumph is another upset in the French poll race, with the former education minister and son of a dockworker viewed as an outsider only three weeks ago.

His nomination completes the list of major candidates for the two-round election in April and May after five years of unpopular Socialist rule.

Hamon's rivals include rightwing Republicans nominee Fillon, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, as well as centrist Emmanuel Macron who some analysts see as likely to benefit from the Socialists' tilt to the left.

Fillon, who was also deemed a long-shot until he clinched the Republicans nomination in November, has consistently been tipped to become France's next leader.

But his campaign has been in turmoil since Wednesday when a newspaper reported his wife had been paid around 500,000 euros ($540,000) over eight years for a suspected fake job as a parliamentary aide.

Those allegations have sparked a preliminary judicial inquiry, but there was more bad news for Fillon on Sunday.

Investigative website Mediapart and the Journal du Dimanche newspaper reported Fillon had used his parliamentary allowance to pocket up to 25,000 euros while working as a senator from 2005-2007.

A poll by Kantar Sofres-Onepoint published Sunday evening showed Fillon losing ground and Macron gaining.

The survey of 1,032 voters showed Le Pen leading the first round of the election with 25 percent, followed by Fillon with 21 percent and Macron on 20 percent.

While Fillon would easily beat Le Pen in a run-off, he would lose a duel with Macron, the poll showed.

- Fillon 'headwinds' -

In a defiant speech on Sunday in front of thousands of flag-waving supporters in Paris, Fillon said he would not let himself be "intimidated".

"On the road to victory, there will be some headwinds, there will be some squalls. We'll go straight ahead, straight to victory!," he declared.

Earlier, in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche, he denounced a "plot" against him and French democracy.

It remains unclear how the allegations will affect him or the outcome of the vote, which is being closely watched after the Brexit referendum in Britain and Donald Trump's triumph in the United States.

After five years of rule by Socialist President Francois Hollande, France is pessimistic about its economic prospects and fearful about terrorism and immigration.

Far-right leader Le Pen believes the nationalist sentiment that influenced British and American voters in 2016 will also carry her to the French presidency in what would be a profound shock for the continent.

But her National Front party is also embroiled in its own expenses scandal over money from the European parliament.

Valls, who conceded defeat and wished Hamon well on Sunday, took a parting shot at the far-right leader, saying that Socialists "reject Marine Le Pen's face being the face of France in the future."

- Macron hopes -

Hamon's victory and Fillon's woes could boost Macron, the youngest candidate in the race at 39 who quit Hollande's government last year to start his own political movement, En Marche (On the Move).

The former economy minister and investment banker has been drawing crowds of thousands to rallies around the country and polls show him creeping up on Fillon and Le Pen. Hamon has pitched himself as a man of fresh ideas for the left, promising to bring in universal basic income -- a state handout to all adults, irrespective of income -- to compensate for jobs lost to automation.

He also wants to levy taxes on robots, legalise cannabis, introduce stricter rules on chemical products, and introduce a new corps of state inspectors to combat discrimination.

Valls, prime minister under Hollande until December, had lampooned Hamon's programme as unworkable and labelled him a dreamer.

The bill for his universal income programme, envisaged for sometime after 2020, was estimated at a staggering 480 billion euros annually by an economic research unit at Sciences Po university in Paris.</s>French voters on Sunday were electing the Socialist candidate who will face a tough battle against rivals from the far-left, far-right and the political center in the presidential election this spring.

The Socialist primary runoff offered a stark choice between two candidates — Benoit Hamon and former Prime Minister Manuel Valls — on opposite poles of the beleaguered party, with sharply different plans for France.

With a headline-grabbing proposal to pay all French adults a modest monthly stipend, Hamon, 49, emerged from obscurity on the Socialist left to win the primary's first round against six other candidates last weekend.

Casting his ballot Sunday in Trappes, the blue-collar town west of Paris where he is the elected lawmaker, Hamon expressed hope for high voter participation. Voting in Evry, south of Paris, Valls echoed that call. The primary was open to all voters who paid 1 euro ($1.04) and signed a document saying they share the left's values.

A more robust turnout than the anemic 1.6 million votes cast in the first round of the primary would help bolster the legitimacy of the runoff winner entering a potentially bruising campaign.

In the sometimes testy primary campaign, Valls, 54, emphasized his experience in government. As prime minister from 2014 to 2016, he was on the front lines of France's response to gun and suicide-bomb attacks that killed 147 people in Paris in January and November 2015. He was also in office in July 2016 when a man drove a truck into crowds in Nice, killing 86 people.

Casting his ballot for Valls in a gymnasium two blocks from the presidential Elysee Palace, voter Jean-Pierre Abehassera said the ex-prime minister offered a stronger bulwark against militant Islam than Hamon. The 69-year-old web publisher lost a friend in the November 2015 attack on the Bataclan concert hall, where 90 died.

"The No. 1 problem is security," Abehassera said.

But Valls' close association with chronically unpopular President Francois Hollande, who isn't seeking a second five-year term, has made him vulnerable in a race against Hamon, who quit Hollande's government in 2014 amid infighting over economic policies.

Hamon, a former junior minister and briefly Valls' education minister, picked up backing from Arnaud Montebourg, another Socialist left-wing rebel who defied Hollande. The 290,000 votes the former economy minister received in the primary's first round were expected to help Hamon defeat Valls in the runoff.

Hamon's signature proposal is for a 750 euros ($800) "universal income" that would be gradually granted to all adults. Valls sharply criticized the idea as unrealistic and ruinous, both for France and the Socialist Party's credibility. Hamon also proposes legalizing cannabis and allowing medically assisted deaths.

Voting for the first time, student Maayane Pralus, 18, backed Hamon, saying: "He has a lot of the youth vote with him, which is sick of the old politics."

"People call him utopian, but that's the politics we've been waiting for," she said.

The presidential race was rocked this week by ethics questions faced by conservative candidate Francois Fillon, a former prime minister. Financial prosecutors are investigating an allegedly fake but handsomely paid job as a parliamentary aide held by this wife, Penelope.

She appeared at his side and was given a standing ovation during a boisterous rally in Paris on Sunday to bolster his troubled campaign, where supporters chanted her name and "Fillon, president!"

"Through Penelope they are trying to break me," he said. "I will never forgive those who chose to throw us to the wolves."

The first order of business for Sunday's winner will be trying to unite the Socialist family that has been torn for years between advocates of a radical left, including Hamon and Montebourg, and party members with center-left views, like Valls and Hollande.

"It's always been hard to unite the left," Hamon said as he voted.

Divisions are so deep that some of Valls' support is expected to shift to centrist Emmanuel Macron, running for president as an independent, if Hamon wins the Socialist ticket.

In such a complex political landscape, some voters cast ballots strategically. Bernard Biassette, 74, a retired bank worker, voted for Hamon only to eliminate Valls, whom he saw as a greater threat to his preferred presidential candidate — Macron.

Hamon "is throwing money out of the window," Biassette said. "He's not a serious candidate."

Early polling has suggested that the Socialist nominee will struggle to advance from the presidential election first-round in April to qualify for the runoff in May. Macron, Hollande's former economy minister, and fiery far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon are squeezing the Socialists from both sides.

But Fillon's legal problems have thrown a cloud of uncertainty over expectations of a two-horse race between him and far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

"I still think he is the best candidate for France, to help us get out of the crisis and reduce unemployment," said Laurence Benoist, who was among the 15,000 people Fillon said attended his rally.

Despite being "a bit surprised, a bit upset" by the allegations against Penelope Fillon, Benoist, 43, added: "I still believe he is sincere when he says he tells the truth about France's situation".

———

Nadine Achoui-Lesage and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.</s>With 58 percent of the two million voters in the deciding round of the Socialist-organised primary backing him, Hamon has a mandate that is also a disavowal of the record of President François Hollande's government.

Hamon quit his post as education minister in 2014 along with other left-wing rebels in protest at the pro-business policies of a government headed by his rival in the primary, Manuel Valls.

The turnout in the second round of the primary was higher than in the first but lower than in the Socialists' first primary, in 2011.And it was dwarfed by the five-million turnout in the mainstream right's first primary, which saw former prime minister François Fillon chosen last month.

Hamon's victory is one of several results that have shown a polarisation to both the left and the right in Europe and America recently.

Like British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, also the beneficiary of a surprise win in a primary last year, Hamon's left-wing stance has gathered enthusiastic support among party sympathisers but is judged unrealistic by many of his own party's MPs.

Just before the deciding round Valls himself said that he could not campaign for Hamon's programme, whose most notable proposal is a universal basic income.

The two also disagree on how Muslims should fit into France's version of secularism.

Valls has let it be known that he will not be present at Hamon's investiture as candidate next Sunday.

Several of the former prime minister's supporters have threatened to switch their loyalties to former economy minister Emmanuel Macron, who was never a Socialist Party member and quit the government launch a bid for the presidency, forming his own party in the process.

But one of Valls's key allies, Philippe Doucet, put their number at 10 or less.

"First of all, we don't know what Emmanuel Macron thinks," he told RTL radio. "And then, when you are a Socialist MP, elected by Socialist voters with Socialist activists, you have to answer to your own activists and voters."

Another problem for Hamon is that several other left-wingers had thrown their hats in the ring before he won the Socialist nomination.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is backed by his own Left Party and the Communist Party, has been showing better in the opinion polls that any Socialist candidate and has ruled out withdrawing from the race, pouring scorn on the Socialists' record in government.

But that was before Hamon's surprise win and the hard-left candidate has recently noted that Hamon's position was "so close to ours".

Green party candidate Yannick Jadot, who represents a party that has lost several of its leading members in the last year and has poor poll ratings, has also said that he is not thinking of withdrawing, although he has hailed Hamon's commitment to the ecology and backed many of his other positions.

Hamon on Sunday said that his first task would be to try to rally the left, although it looks as if he may have his work cut out.

The run-up to this election has been as full of surprises as the US presidential election, the Brexit vote and Greece's troubles with eurozone membership.

Fillon came from behind to win of the mainstream right primary on a socially conservative, economically austere ticket.

But he appears to be undergoing a stark reversal of fortunes following allegations that his wife, Penelope, was paid to do nothing or very little from the public coffers.

That should benefit far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, whose National Front did not risk a primary and who the polls show facing Fillon in the presidential decider.

But it also seems to be benefiting Macron, 39, whose image as a new broom who will sweep French politics clean is hardly burnished by the fact that he was a minister in Hollande's government.

He has been accused in a book, L'Enfer de Bercy, of spending 80 percent of his economy ministry's entertainment budget but, as Fillon's supporters ruefully commented on Monday, the allegation does not seem to have done him as much harm as Penelopegate has done their man.

On Monday afternoon Hamon was to meet Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who earlier advised Socialist sympathisers not to pick a candidate who criticised the government's record.

Later in the week he is to meet Hollande, who on Sunday evening congratulated the French handball team for winning the world title but not his own party's newly chosen presidential candidate.

Most of the French media have predicted nothing but trouble ahead for Hamon.

But in today's febrile political atmosphere, the French presidential race could have more surprises in store.</s>Benoit Hamon will be the French Socialist Party's candidate for April's presidential election.

He beat ex-prime minister Manuel Valls in the vote on Sunday, partial results showed.

Former education minister Mr Hamon was dismissed from current French President Francois Hollande's government for criticising a pro-business shift in policy.

He won 59% of the vote, but is not expected to perform well in the presidential elections as Conservative Francois Fillon, right-wing Marine Le Pen, and centrist Emmanuel Macron led the polls.</s>Benoît Hamon, a former education minister, hammered ex-prime minister Manuel Valls to become the French Socialist Party’s candidate for the upcoming presidential election in April, pushing the already divided party sharply to the left.

Hamon comfortably beat Valls in the run-off vote to clinch the party’s nomination. Valls conceded defeat before the final tally was announced when after 60 percent of the votes counted showed Hamon had just over 58 percent to Valls’ 41 percent.

However, Hamon, 49, is not expected to perform quite as well in the presidential poll as the outgoing Socialist president Francois Hollande’s approval ratings continue to dip.

The election favorite, right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen, Francois Fillion of the Conservative party and centrist Emmanuel Macron all lead the polls over Hamon.

READ MORE: Marine Le Pen is now leading among French voters – poll

Hamon’s proposal for a universal monthly income for all citizens and calls to legalize cannabis made him by far the most left-leaning candidate out of the initial seven Socialist campaigners, and resulted in his subsequent popularity spike.

Hamon’s other proposals include a 32-hour working week, abolishing the labour law passed last year that made it easier to hire and fire employees, a tax on artificial intelligence and robots, increased public spending and a widening of the deficit to invest in renewable energies.

Even those who were not memberS of the Socialist Party were allowed to vote in the primary, resulting in a turnout higher than the previous week when 1.6 million people cast their vote, organizers said. However, the accuracy of number has been called into question after journalists at Le Monde and Buzzfeed reported that they were allowed to vote multiple times.

Hamon unceremoniously interrupted Valls just minutes into his concession speech to accept his victory, forcing television stations to interrupt their live feed of Valls to cut to the winner.

Some unimpressed voters took to social media to lambaste Hamon as rude, vengeful and “shameful” for the unfriendly move.

Others labeled it a “cordial misunderstanding” and lack of communication between party coordinators.</s>PARIS: French Socialists are set to choose their candidate for this year's presidential election on Sunday in a runoff pitting pro-business ex-premier Manuel Valls against hard-left lawmaker Benoit Hamon.

Hamon, who is often compared to British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, is favourite to beat Valls in the primary's head-to-head vote, but has little chance of winning the presidential race proper after five years of unpopular Socialist rule.

Opinion polls have shown neither men would garner enough support to reach the election's runoff in May, and were likely to come in a humiliating fifth place in the first round behind centrist Emmanuel Macron and left-winger Jean-Luc Melenchon.

The two frontrunners are conservative Francois Fillon, currently embroiled in a scandal over his wife's work as his parliamentary assistant, and far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

But although the Socialist candidate has little chance of succeeding President Francois Hollande at the Elysee palace, the winner of Sunday's vote will help decide the fortune of other candidates.

A victory by Hamon, who wants to give a "universal income" to all citizens at a cost of 350 billion euros and tax robots, would boost Macron's chances by pushing Valls' centre-left supporters into the former investment banker's arms.

Hamon, a former education minister, was kicked out of Valls' government in 2014 for differences on economic policy.

Macron was Valls' economy minister until he quit last year to launch his presidential campaign.

But he was not a party member, and has spurned the Socialist primaries that Valls and Hamon are contesting, having launched his own centrist political movement.

The latest polls show him breathing down the necks of Fillon and Le Pen. A Hamon win would also accelerate an influx of moderate Socialist lawmakers towards Macron, party members have told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

This refusal of the most pro-business wing of the party to rally behind a more radical leftist could hasten a break-up of the Socialist party, for decades one of the main political forces in France, analysts said.

"We now know these two different Lefts cannot govern together," Gerard Grunberg, a researcher and specialist of the Left at Sciences-Po university in Paris told France Info radio.

"It will be harder than ever before to cohabit. Which is why, it's true, we can say they have become irreconcilable."</s>PARIS: France’s Socialists will offer a stark contrast in Wednesday’s debate between diehard leftist Benoit Hamon and reformist ex-prime minister Manuel Valls as the two vie for the party’s presidential nomination.

Valls and Hamon “have each taken half of the pie: governmental authority for one, activist hope for the other,” wrote Laurent Joffrin, editor-in-chief of the leftist daily Liberation.

Hamon, the surprise winner of the first round of the Socialists’ primary on Sunday, has wooed voters with his staunchly leftist proposals, notably the idea of a universal basic income, dismissed as a “mirage” by Valls.

He also wants to legalise marijuana and tax robots that replace workers.

The 49-year-old Hamon, round-faced with a schoolboy haircut, has a crowd-pleasing eagerness that contrasts with the square-jawed assertiveness of Valls, 54, who was interior minister before becoming PM.

Valls sees Hamon as “a utopian,” wrote Laurent Bodin of the northeastern daily L’Alsace. “To Hamon, Valls is not at all a Socialist but a man of the right.”

Hamon joined a rebellion against what he saw as the Socialist government’s rightward drift under Valls and President Francois Hollande, quitting as education minister in 2014.

Valls, a lover of boxing and football who describes himself as a “fighter”, will need to draw on his pugnacity to reclaim the upper hand ahead of the primary run-off vote on Sunday.

He dismissed Hamon’s first-round win as the result of a protest vote by Socialists for whom opinion polls offer scant hope that their eventual nominee will win the presidential race this spring.

“A clear choice is before us — the choice between certain defeat and possible victory,” Valls said Sunday.

“I want nothing of these mirages that evaporate in an instant and that sow disillusionment (and) bitterness,” he told an earlier campaign rally.

Valls’ parents, a Spanish painter father and Swiss-Italian mother, fled the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain to settle in France, though they travelled back to Barcelona for his birth in August 1962. He gained French citizenship when he was 20.

Valls has four children from his first marriage to a teacher. In 2010 he remarried, to concert violinist Anne Gravoin.

Valls makes no apologies for his pro-business stance and desire to modernise the Socialist party.

But his use of decrees to ram through contested economic reforms as prime minister, as well as a failed proposal to strip dual-national terrorists of their French citizenship, alienated many in the party.

Hamon, who hails from western Brittany, is the son of a dockworker father and secretary mother.

He began his political life as a student activist in the 1980s.

In 1986, aged 18, he joined massive student protests against proposed reforms which then right wing president Jacques Chirac was forced to withdraw.

The father of two with his partner Gabrielle Guallar, Hamon has a degree in history.

Valls has warned “the left could die” and has described the emergence of two “irreconcilable” factions — one pragmatic and open to reforms, the other wedded to the class struggle.

Such statements have comparisons to former British prime minister Tony Blair who dragged his Labour Party towards the centre and won three successive elections.

Valls is not the only one making dire warnings of a lasting rift within the party that dominated France just five years ago.

“In the china shop, the PS (Socialist Party) elephants have already broken everything in the china shop,” said Yann Marec, deputy editor of Midi Libre, a southern regional paper.

“Well before the second round, the Socialist shopwindow is in 1,000 pieces. Hamon the Breton and his promises against Valls the Catalan and his thrusting chin: the spectacle smells of blood.”</s>A tax-and-spend radical described as the 'French Jeremy Corbyn' on Sunday became the Socialist Party candidate to contest his country's next presidential election.

Benoit Hamon, 49, won a resounding victory in a head-to-head primary against former prime minister Manuel Valls, 54.

Mr Hamon, himself a former education minister, gained 58.65 per cent of the national vote - a clear majority - after some two million people took part in the poll.

'Benoit Hamon won decisively,' Valls said in a concession speech. 'Benoit Hamon is henceforth the candidate of our political family.'

He will now represent the embattled Socialists in the election to find a new head of state, which will take place over two rounds in April and May.

It follows Socialist President Francois Hollande already conceding defeat, announcing last year that he would not even bother seeking re-election.

His presidency has been characterised by soaring unemployment, business failure, and violent street demonstrations, and his approval rating is currently just four per cent.

Mr Hamon hopes to put all of this mediocre governance behind him, but opinion polls suggest the Socialists will be wiped out in the first round in April.

Not only does Mr Hamon want to reduce the 35-hour-week to 32 hours, but he thinks all adults should get a monthly income worth around £600 (€700) no matter what they do.

Mr Hamon also wants to legalise cannabis, and to start taxing robots, as artificial intelligence is increasingly used in the work place over human beings.

Mr Valls, a far more moderate Socialist, had already warned that a win for Mr Hamon would mean 'certain defeat'.

He previously labelled Mr Hamon 'the sandman', a seller of dreams which would condemn the Socialist Party to an opposition role for years to come.

And he readily compared his rival Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's main opposition Labour Party.

But while Mr Valls struggled to shake off the tag of prime minister to the deeply unpopular Hollande, Hamon struck a chord with left-wing voters by declaring on the campaign trail: 'I am running for president so that France's heart will beat once again.'

Mr Hamon's most visible public roles were as Mr Hollande's junior minister for the social economy and later as education minister.

He quit that post in protest at what he viewed as the party's shift towards the political right and big business.

Following his win, Hamon called on the Socialist party, independent leftwinger Jean-Luc Melenchon, and a Green candidate to unite.

'I will propose to them that we build a coherent and durable government majority,' Hamon told supporters.

Opinion polls have been showing that Melenchon could win well over 10 per cent of the popular vote in the April election, more than the Socialist party has been seen as likely to get.

The Socialist primary was being closely monitored after Britain's vote to leave the EU and Donald Trump's victory in the American presidential election.

Many believe that France is moving increasingly to extremes, and this radicalism may allow a party like the far-right National Front to win the presidential election.

The centre-right Republican Party is currently in chaos because of a fraud scandal involving their candidate, Francois Fillon, and his Wales-born wife, Penelope.

Both are accused of swindling thousands of pounds from the taxpayer by pretending that Mrs Fillon worked for Mr Fillon. Both deny any wrongdoing.

This could lead to a run off between Marine Le Pen, of the National Front, and a weak Mr Fillon, who could easily lose.

Another possibility is Mr Fillon losing out to Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old former economy minister who is running in the contest as an independent.

Mr Macron's youthful image and experience working as a merchant banker have made him hugely popular within an increasingly discredited political establishment.

The former Socialist has set up a movement called En Marche!, which he defines as neither right nor left.

He has been closing on Ms Le Pen and Mr Fillon in the polls and is particularly well supported by young people in big cities.

Traditional leftist Mr Melenchon, who is supported by the once-powerful Communist Party, is also polling ahead of the Socialists and had found it hard to conceal his glee that Donald Trump has signalled the US will withdraw from free trade agreements.</s>PARIS: France’s Socialists face a stark choice in Sunday’s presidential primary between diehard leftist Benoit Hamon and reformist ex-prime minister Manuel Valls.

Hamon, the surprise winner of the first round of the Socialists’ primary last weekend, has wooed voters with his staunchly leftist proposals, notably the idea of a universal basic income, dismissed as a "mirage" by Valls.

He also wants to legalise marijuana and tax robots that replace workers.

The 49-year-old Hamon, round-faced with a schoolboy haircut, has a crowd-pleasing eagerness that contrasts with the square-jawed assertiveness of Valls, 54, who was interior minister before becoming premier.

Hamon joined a rebellion against what he saw as the Socialist government’s rightward drift under Valls and President Francois Hollande, quitting as education minister in 2014.

The combative Valls has dismissed him as a dreamer with no hope of becoming president in May.

Socialist voters face a choice between "certain defeat" with Hamon as their nominee and "possible victory" if they chose him, Valls declared confidently after the first round.

Yet polls show neither man making it past the first round in the presidential vote in April, with conservative ex-premier Francois Fillon, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist ex-economy minister Emmanuel Macron leading the field.

After two-and-a-half years as premier Valls believes he is the best-placed to defend France’s interests in the face of a new protectionist world order.

He has been particularly scathing of his rival’s signature proposal for a universal basic income.

"I want nothing of these mirages that evaporate in an instant and that sow disillusionment and bitterness," he told an earlier campaign rally.

Valls’ parents, a Spanish painter father and Swiss-Italian mother, fled the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain to settle in France, though they travelled back to Barcelona for his birth in August 1962. He gained French citizenship when he was 20.

He has four children from his first marriage to a teacher. In 2010 he remarried, to concert violinist Anne Gravoin. Valls makes no apologies for his pro-business stance and desire to modernise the Socialist party.

But his use of decrees to ram through contested economic reforms as prime minister, as well as a failed proposal to strip dual-national terrorists of their French citizenship, alienated many in the party.

Hamon, who hails from western Brittany, is the son of a dockworker father and secretary mother.

Socialist clash: ‘utopian’ Hamon takes on ‘fighter’ Valls was posted in World of TheNews International - https://www.thenews.com.pk on January 30, 2017 and was last updated on January 30, 2017. This news story is related to Print/182703-Socialist-clash-utopian-Hamon-takes-on-fighter-Valls/ - breaking news, latest news, pakistan ne. Permanent link to the news story "Socialist clash: ‘utopian’ Hamon takes on ‘fighter’ Valls" is https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/182703-Socialist-clash-utopian-Hamon-takes-on-fighter-Valls.</s>Paris, Jan 30 (IANS) Former French Prime Minister Benoit Hamon won the Socialist Party’s presidential primary runoff with 58.7 per cent of the votes.

According to preliminary results, his challenger in the runoff on Sunday, Manuel Valls, also a former Prime Minister, obtained 41.4 percent, Efe news reported.

Election organisers announced the results with 60 per cent of the votes counted. A total of 2 million ballots reportedly were cast to determine the Socialist Party’s presidential nominee in the April 23 national election.

Some 4 million people voted in the primaries for the French right.

Meanwhile, Valls acknowledged that Hamon “clearly won” the primary runoff and will be the presidential candidate of the Socialist “political family”. He went on to “warmly congratulate” his rival.

The result constitutes a victory for the candidate representing the more leftist wing of the Socialist Party, the faction critical of current President Francois Hollande, whom Valls has served as Premier and later Interior Minister.

Leading in the voter surveys at present is ultrarightist Marine Le Pen and conservative Francois Fillon, but also ahead of Hamon in the polls is former Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron and leftist radical Jean-Luc Melenchon.
In the second round run-off to select the Socialist Party's candidate in this year's spring presidential election, the leftist candidate, former Minister of National Education Benoît Hamon, topped former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, a centrist, with 58.65 percent of the vote.