MOSCOW, August 12 (RIA Novosti) – French President Francois Hollande celebrates his 60th anniversary Tuesday.
Francois Hollande was born August 12, 1954, in the northern French city of Rouen. His mother was a social worker and father was a doctor. Young Hollande has studied in Paris, graduating from the Ecole Nationale d’Administration in 1980.
The future leader of France has early showed interest in politics, volunteering in the 1974 presidential campaign of Francois Mitterand. He became a member of the Socialist Party in 1979. After the election of Mitterand in 1981, Hollande served as his special adviser, gaining momentum in the party.
When Mitterand’s presidency came to an end in 1995, the Socialist Party found itself in a struggle. Hollande wanted the party to reunite under the leadership of Jacques Delors, the president of Europan Commission. However, Lionel Jospin became the party’s leader, appointing Hollande as the party’s spokesman.
In 1997, Hollande won the partisan election, becoming first secretary for the following decade. He has also been elected the mayor of central France’s Tulle and has been holding the office for seven years.
In 2011, Hollande decided to run for president. He won the Socialist Party primaries after its frontrunner Dominique Strauss-Kahn was detained for suspected sexual assault. During the 2012 elections, he went up against Nicolas Sarkozy, who was seeking re-election.
Hollande’s presidential program included raised tax for big corporations, lowering the retirement age to 60 years and legalizing same-sex marriage. May 6, 2012, he won the presidential election, becoming the second socialist leader of the Fifth Republic after Francois Mitterand.
One of his most discussed initiatives was the intention of raising the income tax to 75 percent for the country's top earners. This has made some of the country’s affluent speak out against the government, or even seek alternativecitizenship – as Gerard Depardieu, French movie star and a tycoon, did, obtaining a Russian passport. However, new tax legislation in 2013 put the country's maximum income tax rate at 45 percent.
On May 18, 2013, Hollande signed a law allowing same-sex couples to wed.
January 2013, he authorized an army operation against jihadists in North-Western African state of Mali, a former French colony.
Popular French Socialist politician Segolene Royal, with whom Hollande has four children, was his partner for more than three decades. Royal herself has had political aspirations, and, despite Hollande’s protests, ran for president in 2007 against Nicolas Sarkozy, losing to him in the second round. The couple split up weeks after the vote.
Following the break-up, Royal published her biography, in which she accused Hollande of having an affair with political journalist Valerie Trierweiler. Hollande admitted to the relationship, but subsequently in January 2014, the French leader declared that relationship over.
As at April 2014, Hollande’s approval rating stood at 18 percent, making him the most unpopular French president ever, according to an Ifop poll. Political analysts link his unpopularity with weak economic growth and his failure to reverse the country's increasing unemployment.
