Last month, after disastrous results for the ruling party, France now has a new Prime Minister. Manuel Valls, the former interior minister, was elevated to the position
Manual Valls, Prime Minister France
after the resignation of Jean-Marc Ayrault. How that happened is due to the way the French government is organized, which is semi-presidential.
What is a semi-presidential system? It is one in which the president is elected by popular, or direct, vote in a two round process. The President, whose term lasts five years, presides over the Cabinet, is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and settles treaties. The President names the Prime Minister, who is in charge of running the government. The PM is also responsible for the implementation of laws, can introduce bills in Parliament, and names the Cabinet.
Because the President is directly elected by popular vote, one can assume that he is supported by at least half of the voting population. When the President and his political coalition control the Parliament, he names a Prime Minister from his party. There is an assumption, therefore, that the President can push through his political agenda, although that is not always true.
On the other hand, when political opponents of the President control the Parliament, the President names a Prime Minister who reflects the majority opinion, and who, in theory, promotes the opposition agenda. When the President and Prime Minister are not of the same political ideaology, that situation is called cohabitation. After the last set of mayoral elections, the Parti Socialiste lost several key cities to other political parties; change at the top was needed.
François Hollande and Manuel Valls are members of the same party, the Socialist Party & Radical Party of the Left (Parti socialiste – Parti radical de gauche), so there is no cohabitating. But Manuel Valls is from the right wing of the Parti Socialiste, so he and the President are not quite on the same page.
The new Prime Minister was born in Barcelona, Spain and moved to France as a teenager. He joined the Parti Socialiste at the age of 17. After graduating from the University of Paris 1, Valls continued to be very active in the PS. He has been compared to Great Britain’s Tony Blair in his political opinions, which include a ban on full-face veils in public, evicting Roma from illegal camps, and cracking down on youth crime. He is often described as courageous, competent, and having deep convictions, and has criticized policies within his own party, characteristics that should serve him well in his new position.
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