Ex-minister launches Socialist bid for French presidency

France’s divided ruling Socialists began accepting candidates on Thursday for a party primary race ahead of next year’s presidential election, forcing Hollande into making his announcement.

The 62-year-old said he hoped to give his Socialist party a chance to win “against conservatism and extremism” by stepping aside.

Considered an “outsider” the former Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who headed the government when Sarkozy won a convincing victory over his competitors, is now considered the most likely candidate for the presidency of the Fifth Republic.

While the unpopular Hollande still hasn’t said whether he’ll seek re-election, Prime Minister Manuel Valls told French newspaper Journal du Dimanche that he is ready to compete in the left-wing primary in January.

The first round of the presidential election itself will be held on April 23 when a larger field will be whittled down to two.

At the weekend, the conservatives chose Mr Fillon as candidate for Les Republicains party. By bowing out, Hollande is opening the way for a more viable leftist candidate to run against a very extreme center-right Republican candidate in Francois Fillon, and an even more extreme candidate in the far-right Marine le Pen of the National Front. As Sasha Polakow-Suransky wrote in the Guardian last week “the ruthlessly effective rebranding of Europe’s new far-right” has largely been achieved by “stealing the language, causes and voters of the traditional left”, and so the Front National join many other recent right-wing populist movements in espousing protectionist economics.

One of the first reactions came from a former economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, who said the president had made a “courageous decision”. Arnaud Montebourg, a 54-year-old who was economy minister before Macron, has said he’s running within the primary.

The poll published Sunday showed Fillon leading Le Pen with 26 per cent to her 24 per cent in the first round of voting and going on to crush her in the run-off in May. Now, he will be trying to capitalise on the momentum he has gained from his win to deliver the result he wants in the upcoming presidential election.

Both Macron and firebrand Communist-backed candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon are now polling higher than Hollande and Valls. His popularity has also been undermined by stubbornly high unemployment and anaemic economic growth. Some 18 million people voted for the socialist Francois Hollande in 2012, and it is hard to see why they would vote for a Thatcherite like Mr. Fillon five years later.

The EU decision to again renew its sanctions against Russian Federation is scheduled for next June, only a few weeks after the new French president takes office.

Grassroots supporters were further alienated by a pro-business switch in 2014, a wavering over security reforms, and by labor laws that brought thousands out onto the streets in protests early this year. His relationship with partner Valerie Trierweiler broke up acrimoniously when it emerged he occasionally slipped out of the Elysee Palace in disguise at night and rode by motor scooter to visit a new flame, actress Julie Gayet.

He also spoke out against Mr Hollande in October after the publication of a devastating book called “A President Shouldn’t Say That” featuring interviews with the president.