Manuel Valls: a smart operator in the Blair mould --- Manuel Valls, 51, was born in Barcelona, Spain, the son of a Catalan painter and a Swiss Italian mother. He joined the Socialist party at 17 and took French nationality three years later. He speaks four languages and has four children by his first wife. In 2010, he married violinist Anne Gravoin. -- He was a rival of Hollande for the Socialist party's presidential nomination in 2011 but later become the president's campaign spokesman. On the right of the PS, he is an advocate of social democracy in the style of Germany and Scandinavia. In the past he has described himself as a "Blairiste" (after Tony Blair) and a "Clintonian" (after Bill Clinton) and talks of "economic realism" and "individual responsibility". -- The UK's former Europe minister, Denis MacShane, a friend of Valls for a decade, told the Guardian: "He is the closest France has to a Tony Blair – a reformist, pro-growth social democrat not afraid to take on vested interests and challenge conventional statist thinking in France. -- "He will come under pressure from the left but they have no answer to France's problems. It's do or die for Hollande but the departure of the Greens opens the way to France rethinking its energy policy and dropping some of the internal protectionism that slowed down growth. Valls is a tough, smart operator. If the French Socialist government can be saved he's the man to do it". Valls, known as France's "premier flic" (top cop), had made no secret of his desire to become PM but has been at the centre of controversy after the deporting of a 15-year-old Kosovan schoolgirl and her family last year. Recently Valls' wife caused a minor scandal after getting a friend off a parking ticket. -- In 2012, the satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné claimed Gravoin had persuaded Valls to use his authority to have some homeless people removed from outside their apartment in Paris. -- In the same year, the Economist wrote of Valls that he was a "Socialist Sarkozy". "Mr Valls's ascent is partly thanks to a keen eye for what looks good in the media, and a matching energy to supply it," the magazine wrote. -- "Mr Valls has been as tough as his right-wing predecessors." - More, Kim Willsher - Guardian, at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/01/manuel-valls-french-prime-minister-profile