Some might think that Manuel Valls’ political career had ended when he left Matignon, in December 2016. Or during his defeat in the socialist primary (PS), in January 2017. Or even during his departure for Spain, in 2018, to run in the municipal elections of Barcelona the following year. But, “like cats, Manuel Valls seems to have nine lives”, ironizes The Country.
Surprised like many French and foreign observers, the Spanish newspaper judges that the appointment, Monday December 23, of the former Prime Minister (2014-2016) to the post of Overseas Minister in the government of François Bayrou is “out of nowhere”. The Madrid daily considers that with this new ministerial position – elevated to third protocol rank – the political career of the Franco-Spaniard has been “resurrected”.
An accumulation of “failed political experiments”
If Manuel Valls was historically – since the 1980s – a member of the PS, he had chosen to support Emmanuel Macron in 2017. He then ran for mayor of Barcelona in 2019, founding the Barcelona pel Canvi party – rather classified at center right. “Valls is now one of the rare members of the Bayrou cabinet to have a background in the French left.” The journalist ofThe Country does not fail to specify that the current elected socialists who refused to enter the government “risk taking his appointment as a provocation”.
But it’s not just the French who might struggle to accept Manuel Valls’ latest promotion. In Catalonia, this news first suggested a “impossible roll of the dice”, pour The National. In a particularly scathing editorial, journalist José Antich writes: “In its descent towards insignificance, arrogant and sometimes haughty France [est] extremely lavish in recent times towards losers and old hands, going to draft among others a Manuel Valls who, at 62 years old, accumulates failed political experiences.
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