|
Hollande, a relative unknown outside of France, has consistently topped opinion polls [Reuters] |
Francois Hollande, the French Socialist candidate in the presidential election, rides a scooter to work and shuns the showbiz style that is the hallmark of Nicolas Sarkozy, the man he hopes to unseat.
Known as a Socialist party veteran, Hollande, who eked out a narrow
lead in the first round of the poll, is a relative unknown outside
France.
Hollande has consistently topped opinion polls in recent months as the most likely next French president.
Indeed, polls indicate that Hollande and incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy
are neck-and-neck in the first round, but give the socialist candidate a
comfortable lead in the second - results that are remarkable given that
Hollande has never held a government position.
Hollande profiled himself as a down-to-earth figure on the campaign
trail this year since officially announcing in March 2011 he would run.
He pledged himself to be a "normal" president, in contrast to the
flashy and impulsive style that rapidly earned Sarkozy the name
"President Bling Bling" after he won power in 2007.
'Solid left'
Hollande is generally viewed as a moderate. "I don't want a hard
left," said Hollande in a primary debate against Martine Aubry in
October 2011.
"We're just coming out of five years of a brutal presidency. Should
we have a divisive candidacy? I don't want that. We need a solid left."
Hollande's policies propose recruiting 60,000 state-employed school
teachers if elected in a reversal of staff cuts under Sarkozy, but he
has also gone to lengths to say he is no spend-happy leftist but a
cautious moderate vowing to reduce France's public deficit to 3 per cent
of the GDP.
To take the party ticket in 2012, he had to prevail in a gruelling
primary election that put both his political and private life to the
test.
His big break came when Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former party
favourite, was discredited after being arrested in New York in May 2011
for the alleged sexual assault of a maid.
One of the more dramatic moments of that contest came when fellow
contender Segolene Royal - his estranged partner of nearly three decades
and mother of his four children - publicly endorsed his bid.
Hollande, say friends, is warm as well as witty, especially when away from the television cameras.
He has steadily built up a strong following among party loyalists and
paints himself as a modern thinker who is a touch more moderate than
some other party grandees.
Throughout his campaign, Hollande has criticised banks and financial
markets, promising to tighten control over their activities.
Hollande wants to "restore hope" to France's youth, notably by subsidising jobs in areas with high youth unemployment.
Passion for politcs
Born on August 12, 1954 in the northwestern city of Rouen into a
middle-class family, Hollande told his mother as a child he wanted to be
president one day.
He attended France's prestigious Ecole Nationale d'Administration,
the graduate school that churns out most of the country's political
elite.
Having been active in student politics, he joined the Socialist party
in 1979 and played a junior role as an economic adviser in the
Mitterrand presidency.
A parliamentarian since 1988, he represents a constituency in the south central region of Correze.
He succeeded Lionel Jospin as party leader in 1997, a post he retained for more than a decade.
In 2008, amid acrimony over the defeat of Royal by Sarkozy at the previous year's presidential election, he stood down.
It later emerged he had been having an affair with journalist Valerie Trierweiler, his current partner.
Hollande and Sarkozy are different in substance and style; the former
is criticised for being boring and dull, the latter for his antics.
|