By Hajer M'tiri
PARIS (AA)- Former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced on Tuesday his candidacy for mayor of Barcelona.
“I want to be the mayor of a new Barcelona, for everyone, ” Valls told a press conference in Spain's second-largest city, saying he could be “the antidote to populism. ”
The Barcelona-born politician, who has dual nationality through his Catalan father, said he would be running as an independent though with the backing of the conservative party Ciudadanos, the leading pro-union force in the autonomous community.
“The independence movement projects the idea of Barcelona as the capital of an imaginary 'Catalan republic', ” said the 56-year-old politician.
“Barcelona is not that and does not want to be. ”
He added: “Barcelona deserves to be governed for its own benefit and not by those thinking about other projects that have nothing to do with the city’s calling. ”
Valls said next week he would resign his duties in France, where he represents a constituency in Essone, describing his move to Barcelona as “an act of faith ” in a city that had always held a treasured place in his family life.
Last October the Catalan regional Parliament passed an independence resolution, setting itself up for a showdown with the national government, ending up with a number of separatist leaders becoming fugitives in exile.
