Manuel Valls, returning overseas to resolve the crises in Mayotte and New Caledonia

This is the big surprise of the new government. At 62, former Prime Minister Manuel Valls returns as Minister of State in charge of the burning overseas issue. In the protocol order, the ex-socialist is number three in the government, just after the Minister of State for Education Elisabeth Borne, but ahead of the Ministers of the Interior and Justice. A strong signal sent to overseas territories, affected by the crises, from New Caledonia (bruised by the spring riots) to Mayotte, devastated by Hurricane Chido. “Manuel Valls is a bit of a kamikaze personality, I like daring personalities”justified the Prime Minister, François Bayrou, Monday December 23 on BFM-TV, expressing his ” estimated “ for this statesman whom he charged with“one of the heaviest questions”.

His experience alongside his mentor, the former Prime Minister Michel Rocard, under whose aegis the Matignon agreements were concluded in 1988, will be valuable in the management of the thorny New Caledonian issue, which Manuel Valls also followed by Lionel Jospin, architect of the Nouméa agreements, then when he himself was at Matignon, during the five-year term of François Hollande, between 2014 and 2016. His knowledge of crises – notably the Islamist attacks of 2015 – will also be useful to him in finding solutions in Mayotte, where the human and health situation is critical, and where everything must be rebuilt.

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