MADRID, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Former French prime minister Manuel Valls is expected to confirm on Tuesday that he will be a candidate in the elections to choose the next Mayor of Barcelona, northeast Spain in 2019, Spanish media reported.
The 56-year-old, who was born in Barcelona but raised entirely in France, on Friday posted a message on social media with a photo of his feet standing on pavement tiles with the single word message "Barcelona".
Shortly afterwards, media reported that invitations were sent for them to attend Tuesday's press conference, which will be held at the Barcelona Contemporary Cultural Center.
Valls, an opponent of Catalan independence, has been touted as a possible candidate for the center-right party "Ciudadanos" since April. The party leader Albert Rivera appeared to back up the idea of Valls being the party's candidate when he said "I know what he wants to do and that he wants to make changes in the city," adding it was "an ambitious and generous candidacy."
A member of the French Socialist Party, Valls has been the Mayor of Evry, south of Paris, as well as France's interior minister between 2012 and 2014 and prime minister between 2014 and December 2016 when he stepped down to prepare his failed attempt to become the Socialist candidate in the 2017 French Presidential elections.
Should he confirm his intention to run in the 2019 mayoral elections, Valls' main opponent will almost certainly be the current incumbent Ada Colou, the spokesperson for the left-leaning Barcelona en Comu who leads a coalition government in the Barcelona City Hall.
