Ségolène Royal

Ségolène Royal (born Marie-Ségolène Royal, French pronunciation: [maʁi seɡɔlɛn ʁwajal] ; 22 September 1953) is a French politician and member of the Socialist Party.

Royal represented Deux-Sèvres's 2nd constituency in the National Assembly from 1988 to 2007 and was president of the Poitou-Charentes Regional Council from 2004 to 2014. She won the 2006 Socialist Party primary ahead of the 2007 French presidential election, becoming the first woman to be nominated as a presidential candidate by a major party in France. In the subsequent presidential election, she earned further distinction as the first woman to qualify for the second round of a French presidential election, but ultimately lost to Nicolas Sarkozy.

In 2008, Royal narrowly lost to Martine Aubry in the Socialist Party's election for First Secretary at the Party's twenty-second national congress. She lost the Socialist Party presidential primary in 2011, and unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the National Assembly in the 2012 legislative elections.

She has four children with François Hollande, her former domestic partner and Sarkozy's successor as president, and was appointed by him to the vice-chair directorship of the Banque Publique d'Investissement (BPI) in 2013. She served as Minister for Ecology from 2014 to 2017 in the Valls and Cazeneuve cabinets.