Manuel Valls has been eliminated in the first round of the French legislative elections, held on Sunday. The former prime minister and former councilor of the Barcelona City Council aspired to the seat of the fifth constituency of the French residing abroad. In his case, it was to represent those who live in Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Monaco.
The failure to become a deputy in the National Assembly again is a severe political setback for Valls, who was running for the coalition around Emmanuel Macron. The President of the Republic himself intervened so that the former head of government was invested as a candidate, a decision that had detractors.
Even before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published the results, Valls already announced on Twitter that he had not achieved his goal. “I take note of the results,” he said. “Although dissent and division have sown confusion, I cannot ignore my result and the fact that my candidacy has not convinced.” According to the Franco-Spanish politician, it was his responsibility to bear the consequences. “Life is beautiful enough to quietly turn the pages,” he added.
Valls will not go to the second round because he was third, with 15.85%, behind the left-wing candidate, Rénaud Le Berre, and Stéphane Vojetta, the outgoing deputy, also a Macronist, who rebelled against Valls’ appointment and decided to maintain his own candidacy. Vojetta considered that Valls was a “paratrooper” in the territory, imposed from the top. In Barcelona some 34,000 people voted. Valls obtained little more than a thousand votes.
The bulk of the legislative elections are held on June 12 and 19, but in the remote territories and in the constituencies that represent the French abroad, the elections have been advanced a week.
Shortly after communicating his defeat, Valls announced that he was deleting his Twitter account. The former prime minister was for many years a deputy for the department of Essone, south of Paris. He also won the seat, by a very slim margin, in 2017, shortly before leaving the Socialist Party. During his last term in the National Assembly, he was already linked to the Macron majority. He stopped being a deputy to run for mayor of Barcelona. Lately he was a commentator on television.
