Nouvelle observateur francois hollande biography

Francois Hollande has been active in socialist politics for more than 30 years. The economic woes that dominated Francois Hollande's first year as French president continued well into his second, but it was an exclusive story in a gossip magazine that caused most embarrassment for the Socialist leader. After being besieged by record unemployment, low consumer confidence and a new recession, President Hollande would have welcomed a change in his fortunes.

But when Closer magazine published pictures purporting to show him and actress Julie Gayet arriving at a Paris flat and alleged that the pair had been having an affair, the headlines got even worse. The story generated attention across the world but the French public appeared to have little appetite for details about their leader's love life.

Indeed, one opinion poll even suggested that news of his second affair had provided him with a three-point boost in his approval rating among women. But with unemployment continuing to rise, Mr Hollande's personal troubles could not distract him from the reality that he had become the country's least popular president of modern times.

A French politician who served as President of France from to Before his presidency, he was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from to.

Mr Hollande was born the son of a doctor on 12 August in the north-western city of Rouen. Ms Royal would go on to become his partner of nearly three decades and the mother of his four children, although the couple later split. Having been active in student politics, Mr Hollande joined the Socialist party in and played a junior role as an economic adviser in the presidency of Francois Mitterrand.

A member of parliament since , he represents a constituency in the south-central region of Correze. He succeeded Lionel Jospin as party leader in , a post he retained for more than a decade. In , amid acrimony over the defeat of Ms Royal by Mr Sarkozy at the previous year's presidential election, he stood down. It later emerged he had been having an affair with Valerie Trierweiler, a political reporter with current affairs magazine Paris Match.

Closer magazine published claims of an affair between Mr Hollande and Ms Gayet going back two years.