Francois Hollande

"LandepNews"

Francois Hollande

French Socialists have nominated on Sunday Francois Hollande to run for the next presidential election against president Nicolas Sarkozy. Hollande is 57, virtually unknown abroad, considered a consensus building and self-deprecating character.
Hollande defeated the Socialist party president Martine Aubry, and is to meet the incumbent president of France in the elections next years. Though he would seem to stand little chances to none, polls show him with much more approval than Sarkozy in the French society.
Hollande, who is a member of the National Assembly, and a governor of a French region, led the Socialist party between 1997 and 2008. When asked by the French press why did he believe he was nominated, he answered “Because I can beat Sarkozy.”
Francois Hollande is said to have a very thin political resume: he was the leader of the Socialists in one of the most tense times of the party, as Socialist representative Lionel Jospin failed to qualify it into the presidential runoff.
Holland’s merit is said to have been keeping the party united in a very difficult time. Otherwise, he never ran for a ministerial job, and has limited international recognition.
He is father to four children, whose mother is Segolene Royal, the former contender of Sarkozy in the last election. Hollande and Royal had a relationship that lasted until 2007, when they separated. She run for the nomination this year but suffered a bitter defeat in the first phase of the Socialist primary election.
His economic program is based on more progressive tax rates, on spending to reverse cuts in education, on a new work contract that would encourage companies to hire young people, and on reducing the budget deficit.
As for the international affairs, Hollande speaks of a special pact with Germany, so that together the two countries would help the European project move on.
He supported Obama in 2008, risking to prejudice him, giving how Americans view Socialism. In the elections to come, Hollande will assert himself as a anti-Sarkozy type, hoping to win the vote of the people against a president whose economic policies have prejudiced him severely.
Hollande and Sarkozy led their party lists in the European parliamentary election in 1999. On that occasion they had the possibility to address one another, with Sarkozy saying that the opponent could not be his friend because they had different political views and Hollande retorting that he was not planning to become a friend of the incumbent French president.

F. Hollande and N. Sarkozy

Sarkozy is attempting to win the election by fostering a very intense foreign policy, especially in the space that once belonged to colonial France. He was the one to take the lead in the war against Libya’s Qaddafi, many accusing France on that occasion of having attempted to economically re-conquer the north African country.
Then, to win the Armenians over, Sarkozy went as far as antagonizing the Turkish authorities by touching a theme the Turks consider taboo, the Armenian Genocide committed in the wake of the WWI. He said on that occasion that it could be possible that in the near future denying the Armenian Genocide would become a crime in France. The speech stirred a very swift response from the Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who invited France to mind her own business and manage her own colonial past.
In France, Sarkozy is using a very criticized policy against the Roma population, especially against the Roma population arrived to France from Romania, an eastern European country which became a member of the European Union in 2007.
The anti-Roma stance, which brought him criticism in the past, is due to bring him some more, as Romanians, which are not Roma, have begun to be discriminated on the French territory for the mere “fault” of coming from the same country with the Roma.
Romanian television channels present various situations when Romanian people who were minding their legal businesses in France have been taken to police stations after they were collected from the streets, and submitted to procedure only to be released hours later for lack of any shred of accusation against them.
These policies are likely to bring France some sanctions from the European Union and there is no saying whether Sarkozy will be able to surpass the loss created by the economic decisions he had to made in 2010, such as increasing the age for pension, which at the time brought millions in the streets of France.
Earlier this year, Sarkozy was considered without many chances to win again the office as the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Domenique Strauss Kahn was seen as the contended to the election on behalf of the Socialists.
DSK had a respectable career, an international recognition, a large experience in economic matters, a broad knowledge of the world economy. He was the perfect candidate to replace Sarkozy at the highest office.
Then strange things began to happen to DSK. A housekeeper accused him of rape in New York, then the case was dismissed; then a French writer accused him of sexual assault in France, then last week the case was dismissed.

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