The former prime minister of François Hollande was appointed Minister of Overseas Territories by François Bayrou. His former socialist colleagues have not been kind to him since Monday evening.
He is the surprise of François Bayrou's government. Manuel Valls, former prime minister under François Hollande from 2014 to 2016, was appointed head of the Ministry of Overseas Territories, with the rank of minister of state, in a context of crisis following the passage of Cyclone Chido in Mayotte, riots in New Caledonia and a social movement in Martinique against the high cost of living. A choice criticized on social networks and in the media by many elected officials, many from the left.
Several deputies from his former party, the Socialist Party, denounced the image of Manuel Valls who would eat from every rack. Like Arthur Delaporte who ironically reposted, like other elected officials, video extracts of old speeches by the new Minister of Overseas Territories. Notably when he decided in 2018 to leave France to get politically involved in Barcelona in Spain, before returning to France, empty-handed. Invited to the microphone of RTL this Tuesday, December 24, Arthur Delaporte described his former socialist colleague as“embodiment of loss and betrayal”. “We don’t understand what Bayrou is playing at”he revolted.
The general secretary of the Socialist Party, Pierre Jouvet, even described it as “a laughing stock for the whole of France”on the set of BFMTV, highlighting, in addition, the fact that Manuel Valls was eliminated in the 2022 legislative elections.
The elected environmentalist from Yvelines, Benjamin Lucas, also made fun of the appointment of the former tenant of Matignon. “When I said “And why not Manuel Valls?” It was a joke, huh!”he tweeted with clown emojis. The MP refers to comments he made on the France Info set a few days earlier, when the new government had not yet been presented: “If having your Socialist Party card 15 or 20 years ago makes you a man of the left, Manuel Valls why not then, let’s be crazy”he mentioned.
“The height of insult”
Among the rebels, the deputy of Vaucluse Raphaël Arnault, judged the choice of Manuel Valls as a last resort solution: “When you get to the point of pulling out the Manuel Valls card, it’s because you really no longer have a joker.” The elected official, a former member of the antifa group the Young Guard, estimated that “the fall of Emmanuel Macron is inevitable: censorship then resignation”. His colleague Louis Boyard judged that this appointment was “the height of insult”. The 24-year-old MP also announced his desire to censor this new government.
Aymeric Caron expressed his “deepest disgust”denouncing the “support for the Palestinian genocide” by Manuel Valls, in a post X accompanied by a video which brings together several extracts from speeches by the Minister of Overseas in favor of Israel. «Manuel Valls […] who has no political weight, who lost all the last elections he ran for, who has made multiple Islamophobic statements in his career, and he is appointed minister”wrote the LFI deputy.
“You are worse than a turd”
In the morning of this Tuesday, Christmas Eve, the political guests were not the only ones to mock Manuel Valls. Before the handover with his predecessor Jean-Noël Buffet, he went to the France Inter set where a listener attacked him live. “I would like to tell Mr. Valls that he participated under Hollande in the destruction of the left, that he betrayed the PS and its candidate Benoît Hamon, that he went into exile in Spain and was thrown out , that he seeks to rally around Macron and was not elected. You should be ashamed, you are the worst traitor Mr. Valls, all of France is ashamed of your behavior. You are worse than a turd”declared the listener of the public service radio, without being interrupted by the person concerned, before being called to order by the host. “Insults have no place on this channel”recalled the journalist.
This intervention was congratulated by the rebellious MEP Rima Hassan. “Warm thanks to Jean-Noël”she wrote on X.
Another video, this time older – dating from 2015 – also made the rounds on social networks and was taken up by numerous political figures. Then prime minister, Manuel Valls traveled to Reunion Island, where he gave an interview to the La 1ere channel. In one sentence, he made a mistake by stating that Reunion was located in the Pacific Ocean, and not the Indian Ocean. “Reunion is the first department, it is the first overseas region, it has 800,000 inhabitants, it is a major place in the Pacific.he declared, before being corrected by the journalist.
