Political Involvement
In 1980, at the age of 17, Valls joined the French Socialist Party (PS) to support Michel Rocard. Within the PS, he defends the second left, rather than the more pragmatic left of François Mitterrand. While studying history at the University of Paris I, Tolbiac campus, he was member of the UNEF-ID, a progressive student union. In 1980, he met two other student supporters of Rocard with whom he became close friends. Alain Bauer, for whom he later became godfather to his second son, and Stéphane Fouks.
Between 1983 and 1986 Valls was a parliamentary attaché for the member for Ardeche, Robert Chapuis. In 1986 he was elected to the regional Council for the Ile-de-France and served until 1992. In 1988, he succeeded Henri Kaminska as head of the Socialist Party in Argenteuil-Bezons and deputy mayor. From 1988 to 1991 he was responsible for function of the Prime Minister's Cabinet. From 1991 to 1993 he was an inter-ministerial delegate to the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville. In 1995, he became the Secretary of Communications for the national Socialist Party and in 1997 responsible for communications and media relations for the Prime Minster's Cabinet. In 1998 he was elected vice president of the regional Council for the Ile-de-France which he held until 2002. While vice president of the regional Council, he was also elected as mayor of Evry in 2001 and still retains that post. Since 2002 he has been Deputy for the First Electoral District in Essonne and since 2008 the President of the tri-city jurisdiction Evry-Centre-Essonne.
In the 2008 elections to choose the head of the Socialist Party, Valls supported the former presidential candidate Ségolène Royal over her former civil-union partner François Hollande, who eventually won. The election results were controversial. There were irregularities and claims of electoral fraud in the strongholds of North and Seine-Maritime, which favored the candidate Martine Aubry.
Read more about this topic: Manuel Valls, Biography
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