Vincent Peillon announces his candidacy to succeed French president

Vincent Peillon, a former education minister of France, announces his candidacy to lead France’s Socialist Party, where he is already receiving key endorsements from the party’s left wing.

Peillon, a lawmaker in the European Parliament whose mother is Jewish, announced his candidacy Sunday to succeed President Francois Hollande and run as their party’s presidential candidate in the election in April. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo pledged her support for Peillon Monday, according to the French daily Le Figaro.

In the Socialist primaries in January, Peillon will face off against Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

Peillon’s mother, Françoise Blum, was a chief researcher for the French national institute for health and medical research. His father, Gilles Peillon, was a communist and a banker, according to Le Journal de Dimanche. Peillon was appointed education minister in 2012 and served in that position for two years.

Peillon, who rarely talks about his Jewish roots publicly, signed a petition by the left-wing Jcall group, which is the European counterpart of J Street. In 2009 he celebrated the bar mitzvah of his son Elie at a Paris synagogue, according to Jacques Benillouche, a columnist for Slater and Tribune Juive. His other son is named Isaac. Peillon is married to Nathalie Bensahel, a journalist who has written about France’s anti-Semitism problem.

— JTA