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M. Continuo

France's Valls cancels ECB visit for post-election Socialist talks


    PARIS (Reuters) - Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls has cancelled his meeting with European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi scheduled for Tuesday to take part in talks called by French left wing parties after their heavy losses in Sunday's local elections.

    A Socialist Party source said Valls, who had also planned to visit Berlin for the Franco-German council of ministers on his way to the Draghi meeting in Frankfurt, had decided he needed to be present at the talks instead.

    The Franco-German ministers' meeting will still take place.

    Valls' Socialist Party and its allies lost 26 of the 61 French "departements" they were ruling to former President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP and its allies.

    The rise of the far-right National Front, which garnered one in four votes nationally in the first round of the elections but failed to take control of any departements, is also a matter of concern for the ruling Socialists.

    (Reporting by Gregory Blachier; Writing by Andrew Callus; Editing by Ingrid Melander)