To make the case, Vallsists have been operating in stealth mode for months. A major pre-campaign step was to lay out Valls’ views on issues normally outside the prime minister’s purview, namely Europe and the state of the world. On the first subject, Valls telegraphed a cautiously skeptical view in two speeches and an op-ed in the Financial Times published after Britain’s Brexit vote. EU nations, the prime minister wrote in October, needed to come “to terms with the fact that there are borders — that Europe starts and stops somewhere.”
On globalization, Valls signaled an equally skeptical tone. Once the Socialist Party’s most unabashedly free-market figure, he has now taken a step toward anti-globalists Montebourg, Mélenchon and even Marine Le Pen, president of the far-right National Front. “Globalization long held the promise of prosperity, more jobs and jobs with higher value-added,” he wrote in business daily Les Echos in November. “But we have to face facts: this promise has not been held.” [...]
A robust campaign, built upon solid promises to left-wing voters, could just clinch the primary for Valls. But what happens after that is another question. If he makes it through to the presidential election’s first round, Valls will be squeezed between the hard-left Mélenchon and the centrist Emmanuel Macron, his former economy minister. Both will compete with him for left-wing votes. Polls show Valls losing out to the competition.
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