53 Facts About Francois Hollande

1.

Francois Gerard Georges Nicolas Hollande is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017.

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2.

Francois Hollande previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from 2001 to 2008, and President of the General Council of Correze from 2008 to 2012.

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3.

Francois Hollande became a member of the National Assembly in 1988 and was elected First Secretary of the PS in 1997.

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4.

In 2011, Francois Hollande announced that he would be a candidate in the primary election to select the PS presidential nominee; he won the nomination against Martine Aubry, and was elected to the presidency on 6 May 2012 during the second round with 51.

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5.

Francois Hollande led the country through the January and November 2015 Paris attacks, as well as the 2016 Nice truck attack.

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6.

Francois Hollande was a leading proponent of EU mandatory migrant quotas and NATO's 2011 military intervention in Libya.

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7.

Francois Hollande sent troops to Mali and the Central African Republic with the approval of the UN Security Council in order to stabilise those countries, two operations largely seen as failures.

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8.

Francois Hollande drew controversy among his left-wing electoral base for his support of the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.

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9.

Francois Hollande's mother, Nicole Frederique Marguerite Tribert, was a social worker, and his father, Georges Gustave Hollande, was a retired ear, nose, and throat doctor, who "ran for local election on a far right ticket in 1959".

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10.

The name "Francois Hollande" meant "one originally from Holland" – it is mostly found in Francois Hollande's ancestral land, Hauts-de-France, and it is speculated to be Dutch in origin.

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11.

The earliest known member of the Francois Hollande family lived circa 1569 near Plouvain, working as a miller.

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12.

When Francois Hollande was thirteen, the family moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine, a highly exclusive suburb of Paris.

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13.

Francois Hollande attended Saint-Jean-Baptiste-de-la-Salle boarding school, a private Catholic school in Rouen, the Lycee Pasteur, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, receiving his baccalaureate in 1972 then graduated with a bachelor's degree in Law from Pantheon-Assas University.

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14.

Francois Hollande studied at HEC Paris, graduated in 1975, and then attended the Institut d'etudes politiques de Paris and the Ecole nationale d'administration.

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15.

Francois Hollande did his military service in the French Army in 1977.

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16.

Francois Hollande graduated from the ENA in 1980, and chose to enter the prestigious Cour des comptes.

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17.

Francois Hollande lived in the United States in the summer of 1974 as a university student.

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18.

Francois Hollande was quickly spotted by Jacques Attali, a senior adviser to Mitterrand, who arranged for Hollande to run in legislative election of 1981 in Correze against future President Jacques Chirac, who was then the leader of the Rally for the Republic, a Neo-Gaullist party.

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19.

Francois Hollande went on to become a special advisor to newly elected President Mitterrand, before serving as a staffer for Max Gallo, the government's spokesman.

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20.

Francois Hollande lost his bid for re-election to the Assembly in the so-called "blue wave" of the 1993 election, described as such due to the number of seats gained by the Right at the expense of the Socialist Party.

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21.

Francois Hollande pleaded for reconciliation and for the party to unite behind Jacques Delors, the President of the European Commission, but Delors renounced his ambitions to run for the French presidency in 1995.

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22.

Francois Hollande went on to contest Correze in 1997, successfully returning to the National Assembly.

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23.

Francois Hollande would go on to be elected mayor of Tulle in 2001, an office he would hold for the next seven years.

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24.

Immediate resignation of Jospin from politics following his shock defeat by far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of the 2002 presidential election forced Francois Hollande to become the public face of the party for the 2002 legislative election.

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25.

Francois Hollande was widely blamed for the poor performances of the Socialist Party in the 2007 elections, and he announced that he would not seek another term as First Secretary.

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26.

Francois Hollande publicly declared his support for Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of Paris, but it was Martine Aubry who would go on to win the race to succeed him in 2008.

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27.

Francois Hollande was next elected to replace Jean-Pierre Dupont as the president of the General Council of Correze in April 2008, and won re-election in 2011.

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28.

Francois Hollande announced in early 2011 that he would be a candidate in the upcoming primary election to select the Socialist and Radical Left Party presidential nominee.

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29.

Francois Hollande initially trailed the front-runner, former finance minister and International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

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30.

Francois Hollande launched his campaign officially with a rally and major speech at Le Bourget on 22 January 2012 in front of 25,000 people.

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31.

Francois Hollande was inaugurated on 15 May 2012, and shortly afterwards appointed Jean-Marc Ayrault to be his Prime Minister.

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32.

Francois Hollande was the first Socialist Party president since Francois Mitterrand left office in 1995.

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33.

Francois Hollande hosted a visit from Antoni Marti, head of the government, and Vicenc Mateu Zamora, leader of the parliament.

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34.

Francois Hollande appointed Benoit Puga to be the military's chief of staff, Pierre-Rene Lemas as his general secretary and Pierre Besnard as his Head of Cabinet.

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35.

Francois Hollande had announced several reforms to education, pledging to recruit 60,000 new teachers, to create a study allowance and means-tested training, and to set up a mutually beneficial contract that would allow a generation of experienced employees and craftsmen to be the guardians and teachers of younger newly hired employees, thereby creating a total of 150,000 subsidized jobs.

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36.

Francois Hollande's government has announced plans to construct 500,000 public homes per year, including 150,000 social houses, funded by a doubling of the ceiling of the A passbook, the region making available its local government land within five years.

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37.

Francois Hollande has announced his personal support for same-sex marriage and adoption for LGBT couples, and outlined plans to pursue the issue in early 2013.

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38.

Rather than raising the mandatory retirement age, as many economists had advised, Francois Hollande pursued increases in contributions, leaving the retirement age untouched.

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39.

Francois Hollande pledged to conclude a new contract of Franco-German partnership, advocating the adoption of a Directive on the protection of public services.

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40.

Francois Hollande has proposed "an acceleration of the establishment of a Franco-German civic service, the creation of a Franco-German research office, the creation of a Franco-German industrial fund to finance common competitiveness clusters, and the establishment of a common military headquarters".

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41.

On 11 January 2013, Francois Hollande authorised the execution of Operation Serval, which aimed to curtail the activities of Islamist extremists in the north of Mali.

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42.

The intervention was popularly supported in Mali, as Francois Hollande promised that his government would do all it could to "rebuild Mali".

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43.

In 2014, Francois Hollande took some of these troops out of Mali and spread them over the rest of the Sahel under Operation Barkhane, in an effort to curb jihadist militants.

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44.

On 27 February 2014, Francois Hollande was a special guest of honor in Abuja, received by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in celebration of Nigeria's amalgamation in 1914, a 100-year anniversary.

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45.

In September 2015, Francois Hollande warned former Eastern Bloc countries against rejecting the EU mandatory migrant quotas, saying: "Those who don't share our values, those who don't even want to respect those principles, need to start asking themselves questions about their place in the European Union".

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46.

Francois Hollande supported the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen, re-supplying the Saudi military.

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47.

Francois Hollande is the most unpopular president of the French Fifth Republic.

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48.

Francois Hollande remained a reporter for the magazine Paris Match, but ceased work on political stories.

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49.

On 25 January 2014, Francois Hollande officially announced his separation from Valerie Trierweiler after the tabloid magazine Closer revealed his affair with actress Julie Gayet.

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50.

The claim brought an angry reaction and rejection from Francois Hollande, who said he had spent his life dedicated to the under-privileged.

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51.

Francois Hollande was raised Catholic, but became an agnostic later in life.

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52.

Francois Hollande now considers himself to be an atheist, but still professes respect for all religious practices.

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53.

Francois Hollande has had a number of books and academic works published, including:.

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