Francois Hollande
Francois Hollande
François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande; born 12 August 1954) is the President of the French Republic and Co-Prince of Andorra, having been elected to the position in 2012. Hollande was previously the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party from 1997 to 2008, the mayor of Tulle from 2001 to 2008, and the President of the Corrèze General Council from 2008 to 2012. Hollande also served in the National Assembly of France twice for the department of Corrèze's 1st Constituency...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth12 August 1954
CityRouen, France
CountryFrance
I perfectly understood President Obama's attitude throughout the French presidential campaign. He had no reason to distance himself from Nicolas Sarkozy. It's the basic solidarity that leaders who worked together owe to each other.
If I become president, France will not continue with the same policies as under Nicolas Sarkozy - both in domestic policy and in foreign and European policy.
Nicolas Sarkozy said he could see a wave rising. For once he was right. The wave's coming; it's high, its strong, and it's going to smack him in the face.
We're all taking part in this solidarity. The French, the Germans, just like all the Europeans in the ESM. Let's stop thinking that there's only one country who's going to pay for the others. That's false.
No one imposes things on anyone in Europe. That's not my notion, nor is it my temperament. The EU has always functioned under the banner of respect, equilibrium and trust.
We find ourselves in a difficult situation in Europe. There's a crisis, weak growth, unemployment... my duty is to ensure that by the end of my mandate France is in a better state than it was at the beginning.
That is now my mission: to provide a European vision of growth, employment, prosperity - in one word, our future.
We are a big country, with lots of advantages and history. We are proud to be French. We have to call on patriotism at this time... to ask for an effort in the battle against debt.
We are near, very near, to an end to the eurozone crisis... The worst - in the sense of the fear of the eurozone breaking up - is over. But the best isn't there yet.
France, after the month of May, will share trust with the current leadership of the United States which, on many subjects, has tended to take useful positions in our view.
Before you, I engage myself to serve my country with the devotion and the exemplary that this post demands. I understand responsibilities of the job and, as such, I give a republican salute to Nicolas Sarkozy who has led France for 5 years and who deserves all of our respect.
There is just one France... one single nation, united in the same destiny.
What the French want is coherence, stability and justice. If I am in a favorable position today, it's because my fellow citizens want to make the effort to straighten out the country, and at the same time they want it to be just and equitable.
Terrorism fuels itself from all kinds of illicit trafficking: drugs, weapons, human beings.