François Hollande

François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (French: [fʁɑ̃swa ʒeʁaʁ ʒɔʁʒ(ə) nikɔla ɔlɑ̃d] ; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. Before his presidency, he was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from 2001 to 2008, as well as President of the General Council of Corrèze from 2008 to 2012. He has also held the 1st constituency of Corrèze seat in the National Assembly three times, first from 1988 to 1993, then from 1997 to 2012, and from 2024 onwards.

Born in Rouen and raised in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hollande began his political career as a special advisor to newly-elected President François Mitterrand before serving as a staffer for Max Gallo, the government's spokesman. He became a member of the National Assembly in 1988 and was elected First Secretary of the PS in 1997. Following the 2004 regional elections won by the PS, Hollande was cited as a potential presidential candidate, but he resigned as First Secretary and was immediately elected to replace Jean-Pierre Dupont as President of the General Council of Corrèze in 2008. In 2011, 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 before he was elected to the presidency (becoming also, ex officio, Co-Prince of Andorra) on 6 May 2012 in the second round with 51.6% of the vote, defeating incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.

During his tenure, Hollande legalised same-sex marriage by passing Bill no. 344, reformed labour laws and credit training programmes, signed a law restricting the cumul des mandats, and withdrew French forces in Afghanistan, in addition to concluding an EU directive on the protection of animals in laboratory research through a Franco-German contract. Hollande led the country through the January and November 2015 Paris attacks, as well as the 2016 Nice attack. He was a leading proponent of EU mandatory migrant quotas and NATO's 2011 military intervention in Libya. He also 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 however largely seen as failures. He drew controversy among his left-wing electoral base for supporting the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.