French PM Manuel Valls resigns, announces presidential bid

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Monday entered the race to be the Socialist candidate for next year's presidential election and said he was quitting the government to focus on campaigning.
Opinion polls bill the 54-year old Valls as favourite to win his party's nomination in late January primaries.

But the centrist with a business-friendly stance on economic policies combined with a reputation as a hardliner on law and order will face stiff competition from party rivals.
In any case, opinion polls predict that no left-wing candidate is likely to gather enough support in the presidential election and that conservative Francois Fillon would eventually beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in a two-way run-off.
"Yes, I am candidate for the presidency of the Republic," Valls said to applause from supporters in his fiefdom of Evry, the gritty southern suburb of Paris where he was mayor for over a decade. [L5N1E00L9]
"I am outraged at the idea that the Left could be disqualified from these presidentials," Valls said, referring to his camp's poor poll ratings and its divisions. "We must unite," said Valls who later added: "My candidacy is one of conciliation, of reconciliation."
Valls had made no secret of his desire to seek the Socialist ticket and President Francois Hollande's decision not to run for a second mandate opened the way for him.
Valls announced his resignation as prime minister, saying it would be effective on Tuesday.

Opinion polls make him favourite to win his party's ticket, but his pro-business reforms and tough stance on law and order have made him enemies within his own party and it will be a hard fight.
Even if he does secure the nomination, surveys show the presidential contest is set to come down to a run-off on May 7 between right-winger Francois Fillon of the Les Republicains party and Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-EU, anti-immigrant National Front.
Valls has been Hollande's prime minister since March 2014, after being his "top cop" interior minister for two years. He had strong opinion poll ratings when he was in the Interior Ministry but has seen his own popularity fall since.
A Harris Interactive poll on Monday showed 69 percent of voters do not trust him. That's better than Hollande's 78 percent but hardly a good score.

STRAIGHT-TALKING
Valls is not your usual high-ranking French politician.
Born in Barcelona to a Spanish father and a Swiss-Spanish mother who later left a country ruled by General Francisco Franco, Valls would, if elected president, be the first French leader who was not born French - he took French citizenship aged 20, three years after joining the Socialist Party. 
With a degree in history, he is also one of the rare senior French politicians who has not gone to the country's elite ENA administrative school. 
As implementer of Hollande's pro-business reforms, Valls is tarred by the same brush as his boss in the eyes of several influential Socialist figures who have seen the lurch to the right as a betrayal of party values.
His straight-talking style, which critics describe as abrupt, and criticism of Socialist sacred cows, such as the 35-hour work week, have earned him the backing of those who want the party to be more centrist but the animosity of others.

His hard line on secularism and security issues - witnessed by his comments on the full body burkini swimwear being a "provocation" and calls for the Muslim headscarf to be banned in universities - have caused controversy.
Valls has recently sought to soften his image and made proposals on a minimum guaranteed revenue for all and life-long training rights, policies seen as more left-wing and a sign he is seeking to broaden his appeal in the run-up to the primary.

He has nevertheless indicated he will defend Hollande's legacy. "We must defend our record. We must defend this action and I will do that unfailingly," he said.
If, as expected, he does run for the Socialist Party ticket, his main rival will be Arnaud Montebourg, a leftist firebrand and former economy minister under Hollande, who quit the government over its move to the right. 
According to Jacques Hennen and Gilles Verdez, authors of "Manuel Valls, Secrets of a Destiny", the media-savvy politician has long harboured presidential ambitions.
A long-time mayor of Evry, a gritty southern suburb of Paris, Valls has four children. His second wife is a violinist.
Filmed by D8 television in an Evry market in 2009, before being in government, he was criticised for saying there were not enough "whites" around and this was giving the wrong image of his town. 
From 1997 to 2001, Valls served as communications director to Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin under President Jacques Chirac.