Manuel Valls announces French presidential bid

Socialist Prime Minister declares he will step down to pursue presidency

Prime Minister Manuel Valls (right) is running after President Hollande (left) announced he will not seek re-election (Getty)

Manuel Valls, Prime Minister of France, has formally declared that he will stand to be the Socialist Party candidate in the country's 2017 presidential election.

He will resign from his current government position in order to pursue the presidency, he announced during a speech on Monday evening in Évry, in the southern Paris suburbs, where he governed as Mayor for 11 years.

The Prime Minister’s speech comes four days after President François Hollande’s announcement that he would not seek re-election next year.

Mr Hollande decided not to run after concluding he could not unite the party. Mr Valls is believed to have announced his bid to replace him after meeting the President for lunch at the Elysée Palace.

Mr Valls said that his candidacy is "a revolt against the idea that the left is disqualified from this presidential election”. He has edited his profile on the social media site to describe himself only as a presidential candidate. "I want to give everything for France," the 54-year-old said in his speech on Monday night.

He will face other contenders in the Socialist primary next month, including Arnaud Montebourg, a left-wing firebrand who left Mr Valls’ government in a reshuffle in 2014 after disagreeing with the Prime Minister’s pro-business shift.

According to opinion polls, Mr Valls is likely to win in a runoff round against Mr Montebourg. But his market-oriented policies and tough stance on immigration and security have divided the party and he has faced criticism from Socialist heavyweights, including Martine Aubry, the mayor of Lille and daughter of former EU Commission Chairman Jacques Delors.

He will also face an uphill battle to overcome the unpopularity of Mr Hollande, whose poll ratings have sunk to as low as 4 per cent.

According to Jacques Hennen and Gilles Verdez, authors of Manuel Valls, Secrets of a Destiny, the Prime Minister has long harboured presidential ambitions.

Although he is now considered to be media-savvy, the father of four was criticised in 2009 after being filmed by D8 television in an Évry market saying there were not enough “whites” around and this was giving the wrong image of his town. He has also sparked heated debate by saying he supports a ban on the burkini and arguing that naked breasts represent France better than a headscarf.