Manuel Valls expected to announce bid for France's presidency

France’s Prime Minister Manuel Valls is to throw his hat in the ring to become France’s next president.

Valls is expected to announce his candidacy for the Socialist party ticket in next year’s presidential election on Monday.

According to Reuters, the prime minister is anticipated to resign from his post on Tuesday with either Michel Sapin, the finance minister or Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, likely to replace him.

Valls’ prospective candidacy follows President François Hollande confirming he will not contest a second term in May’s election, becoming the first sitting president not to do so since the end of the Second World War.

Hollande is the most unpopular French president with his latest approval rating reaching just 4%, and Valls was reportedly instrumental in steering him away from running again.

He is seen as the frontrunner to represent the Socialists, but could face competition from Arnaud Montebourg, a former economy minister.

Meanwhile Emmanuel Macron, the economy minister who succeeded Montebourg and who resigned in August, is contesting the presidency as an independent on a centrist platform with the party he founded, En Marche, which could split the vote on the centre-left.

Polls have suggested that any candidate from the centre left would not make it to the second round, with the eventual runoff for the Elysée Palace to be between the François Fillon for the centre right Les Républicains and Marine Le Pen for the far-right Front National.