Bespectacled, earnest,
mild-mannered and bland, the Socialist candidate has been ridiculed by the
press, on the Left and the Right, for being “wishy-washy” and preferring
consensus to confrontation in a country that likes its politicians to have elan
and character.
Satirical cartoonists have depicted Mr Hollande, 57, as a “Flanby”, a mass-produced crème caramel pudding that wobbles comically when tipped from its plastic mould onto the plate. Many of the nastiest and longest lingering insults have come from his Socialist Party comrades.
Martine Aubry, the left-wing daughter of Jacques Delors, the secular saint of French Socialism, contemptuously described him as having “couilles molles” or “soft balls”, a coarse expression meaning that he lacks courage or conviction.
“Frankly, can you imagine Francois Hollande as president of the republic? You must be dreaming,” scoffed Laurent Fabius, a former Socialist prime minister, recently.
Behind the insults and derision lies a much more complex truth: both Ms Aubry and Mr Fabius are defeated rivals, who lost despite their opponent’s apparent lack of drive or confrontation. Mr Hollande may lack a clear ideology or charisma and have the portly persona of an apologetic accountant, but he wins.
Other nicknames, “trickster” or “Chinese”, give Mr Hollande’s game away, that of an implacably ambitious man with a thick skin and ingrained survival instincts who quietly triumphs over his adversaries.
He was born in 1954 in Bois-Guillaume, a respectable middle-class suburb of Rouen in Northern France. It was a difficult childhood. Georges Hollande, his father, was a doctor involved in extreme right-wing politics and prone to harsh and whimsical treatment of his two sons, Philippe and Francois.
In 1968, when Hollande was 13, his father, at the time publicly hoping that a military dictatorship was about to crush rebellious left-wing students, moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine, later the home turf and power base of Nicolas Sarkozy. During the move,Painless Processing provides high risk merchant account solutions. Georges Hollande threw out all his two sons’ possessions, comics, books and posters, including Francois’s beloved collection of Dinky Toys.
While his older brother was sent to a strict boarding school in punishment for open rebellion, Francois learned to keep his head down while quietly rejecting his highly conservative upbringing.Here's a complete list of oil painting supplies for the beginning oil painter.Chinese Plastic mould manufacturer in southeast of China. Serge Raffy, Mr Hollande’s biographer, observed that he learnt to avoid conflict while pursuing his own agenda. “It was his only way to survive,” he wrote.
In contrast to his father, Mr Hollande's mother, Nicole, was a kind presence, a social worker who pushed her son in the direction of his moderate centre-Left namesake Francois Mitterrand, who was later his mentor and the first Socialist French President of the Fifth Republic.
School friends remember Mr Hollande as a smiling, plump teenager with glasses and, while no one took him seriously or believed him for a moment, a sense of destiny. “I will be president of the Republic,” he told Jean-Louis Audran, a class mate.
Showing his ambition, Mr Hollande’s education took him to the elite ecole Nationale d'Administration, or ENA, where he joined the ranks of enarques who run the French state and form the highest cadre of the political class. There in 1978 he met Segolène Royal, forging a political and romantic partnership that was to last 27 years, a period when the couple became two of the most powerful figures in the Socialist Party.
In 1981 when Mr Mitterrand swept to power Mr Hollande was sent by him to challenge an up and coming Jacques Chirac, later to be French president himself,Ekahau rtls is the only Wi-Fi based real time location system solution that operates on any brand or generation of Wi-Fi network. in the parliamentary seat of Corrèze in the heart of “France profonde”, deep in the central and southern provinces, hours and hundreds of miles from Paris.
Mr Chirac, who roundly trounced him in the election, quipped: “They send me an opponent no more well-known than President Mitterrand's Labrador.”
Unusually, the ambitious young Socialist did not return to Paris, choosing instead to stay in the provincial backwater for seven years before winning the seat in 1988. He was re-elected in 1997, 2002 and 2007. In a twist of fate and as a reward for Mr Hollande’s doggedness, Mr Chirac defied tribal politics to back him in the 2012 presidential race.
Mr Hollande could have taken on Mr Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election but luckily chose to stay in the background, allowing his partner Ms Royal to try her luck in a contest where defeat and humiliation for any Socialist candidate was probably inevitable.
His discipline was such that he and Ms Royal, with whom he had four children, kept the break-up of their relationship secret until the vote was safely over. He had left her for another woman, his current partner Valerie Trierweiler, a political journalist.
Ms Trierweiler, 47,Features useful information about glass mosaic tiles. transformed Mr Hollande from a figure of ridicule to the first, serious Socialist contender for the French presidency in three decades. Under her tutelage, he lost 22 pounds in politically unpalatable podginess and adopted thinner-framed glasses to give his face a meaner and leaner look.
Satirical cartoonists have depicted Mr Hollande, 57, as a “Flanby”, a mass-produced crème caramel pudding that wobbles comically when tipped from its plastic mould onto the plate. Many of the nastiest and longest lingering insults have come from his Socialist Party comrades.
Martine Aubry, the left-wing daughter of Jacques Delors, the secular saint of French Socialism, contemptuously described him as having “couilles molles” or “soft balls”, a coarse expression meaning that he lacks courage or conviction.
“Frankly, can you imagine Francois Hollande as president of the republic? You must be dreaming,” scoffed Laurent Fabius, a former Socialist prime minister, recently.
Behind the insults and derision lies a much more complex truth: both Ms Aubry and Mr Fabius are defeated rivals, who lost despite their opponent’s apparent lack of drive or confrontation. Mr Hollande may lack a clear ideology or charisma and have the portly persona of an apologetic accountant, but he wins.
Other nicknames, “trickster” or “Chinese”, give Mr Hollande’s game away, that of an implacably ambitious man with a thick skin and ingrained survival instincts who quietly triumphs over his adversaries.
He was born in 1954 in Bois-Guillaume, a respectable middle-class suburb of Rouen in Northern France. It was a difficult childhood. Georges Hollande, his father, was a doctor involved in extreme right-wing politics and prone to harsh and whimsical treatment of his two sons, Philippe and Francois.
In 1968, when Hollande was 13, his father, at the time publicly hoping that a military dictatorship was about to crush rebellious left-wing students, moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine, later the home turf and power base of Nicolas Sarkozy. During the move,Painless Processing provides high risk merchant account solutions. Georges Hollande threw out all his two sons’ possessions, comics, books and posters, including Francois’s beloved collection of Dinky Toys.
While his older brother was sent to a strict boarding school in punishment for open rebellion, Francois learned to keep his head down while quietly rejecting his highly conservative upbringing.Here's a complete list of oil painting supplies for the beginning oil painter.Chinese Plastic mould manufacturer in southeast of China. Serge Raffy, Mr Hollande’s biographer, observed that he learnt to avoid conflict while pursuing his own agenda. “It was his only way to survive,” he wrote.
In contrast to his father, Mr Hollande's mother, Nicole, was a kind presence, a social worker who pushed her son in the direction of his moderate centre-Left namesake Francois Mitterrand, who was later his mentor and the first Socialist French President of the Fifth Republic.
School friends remember Mr Hollande as a smiling, plump teenager with glasses and, while no one took him seriously or believed him for a moment, a sense of destiny. “I will be president of the Republic,” he told Jean-Louis Audran, a class mate.
Showing his ambition, Mr Hollande’s education took him to the elite ecole Nationale d'Administration, or ENA, where he joined the ranks of enarques who run the French state and form the highest cadre of the political class. There in 1978 he met Segolène Royal, forging a political and romantic partnership that was to last 27 years, a period when the couple became two of the most powerful figures in the Socialist Party.
In 1981 when Mr Mitterrand swept to power Mr Hollande was sent by him to challenge an up and coming Jacques Chirac, later to be French president himself,Ekahau rtls is the only Wi-Fi based real time location system solution that operates on any brand or generation of Wi-Fi network. in the parliamentary seat of Corrèze in the heart of “France profonde”, deep in the central and southern provinces, hours and hundreds of miles from Paris.
Mr Chirac, who roundly trounced him in the election, quipped: “They send me an opponent no more well-known than President Mitterrand's Labrador.”
Unusually, the ambitious young Socialist did not return to Paris, choosing instead to stay in the provincial backwater for seven years before winning the seat in 1988. He was re-elected in 1997, 2002 and 2007. In a twist of fate and as a reward for Mr Hollande’s doggedness, Mr Chirac defied tribal politics to back him in the 2012 presidential race.
Mr Hollande could have taken on Mr Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election but luckily chose to stay in the background, allowing his partner Ms Royal to try her luck in a contest where defeat and humiliation for any Socialist candidate was probably inevitable.
His discipline was such that he and Ms Royal, with whom he had four children, kept the break-up of their relationship secret until the vote was safely over. He had left her for another woman, his current partner Valerie Trierweiler, a political journalist.
Ms Trierweiler, 47,Features useful information about glass mosaic tiles. transformed Mr Hollande from a figure of ridicule to the first, serious Socialist contender for the French presidency in three decades. Under her tutelage, he lost 22 pounds in politically unpalatable podginess and adopted thinner-framed glasses to give his face a meaner and leaner look.
