François Hollande, the new French President

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The French voted this Sunday 6 May to elect a new French president. Two candidates competed, Nicolas Sarkozy, outgoing president of the right wing, and François Hollande, the Socialist party candidate.

French participation in the vote was 82%. François Hollande won and has been elected as the new French President.

At the end of the second round of voting, according to the estimations from the Ministry of the Interior, François Hollande collected 51.7% of the vote against 48.3% for Nicolas Sarkozy. The highest vote for Francois Hollande was in Paris with a score around 55%.

“The French people have chosen change … I am the president of the youth of France,” said Francois Hollande in front of a large audience, gathered in Place de la Bastille to celebrate his victory and that of the left wing, thirty-one years after the victory of François Mitterrand.

In a speech at the Mutuality in Paris, Nicolas Sarkozy has taken all responsibility for his defeat and wished good luck to Francois Hollande.

Francois Hollande has been congratulated by Barack Obama and has been invited to the White House. He has also been welcomed by David Cameron, and Angela Merkel whom he will meet soon in Berlin.

François Hollande was born in 1954 in Rouen into a middle-class family; his father was a doctor, his mother a social worker. In 1968 the family moved to Neuilly sur Seine. He was a brilliant student in one of the most prestigious schools of the French Republic, the ENA (National School of Administration).

He joined the Socialist Party in 1979, and took a position in the Elysee Palace in the role of chargé de mission just after the election of François Mitterrand in 1981. In 1988 and 1997 he was elected deputy of Corrèze. He was First Secretary, and leader, of the PS (Socialist Party) from 1997 to 2008. In 2011, he won the Socialist primary and declared himself a candidate for the Presidency of the French Republic. He was elected president this Sunday, 6 May, 2012.