François Hollande defies critics to fulfil his destiny at last

Unlike her predeccesor, the former model Carla Bruni, the new First Lady
eschews the trappings of celebrity and fame. She has promised to continue
her career as a journalist, becoming the first working First Lady in French
history.

It was she who woke Mr Hollande to tell him of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest
on alleged sexual assault charges in New York last year. With the fall of
the previous presidential front-runner, Mr Hollande has not looked back.

The new president, born in 1954 in Bois-Guillaume, a middle-class suburb of
Rouen in northern France, had a difficult childhood. Georges Hollande, his
father, was a doctor involved in extreme Right-wing politics and prone to
harsh and whimsical treatment of his two sons. Mr Hollande’s education took
him to the elite École Nationale d’Administration, where he joined the ranks
of “énarques” who run the French state and form the highest
cadre of the political class. There in 1978 he met Ségolène Royal, forging a
political and romantic partnership that was to last 27 years.

In 1981, when François Mitterrand swept to power, Mr Hollande was sent by him
to challenge Jacques Chirac in the parliamentary seat of Corrèze.

Mr Chirac, who trounced him in the election, quipped: “They send me an
opponent no more well-known than President Mitterrand’s labrador.”

Unusually, the ambitious young Socialist did not return to Paris, choosing
instead to stay in the provincial backwater for seven years before winning
the seat in 1988. He was re-elected in 1997, 2002 and 2007. In a twist of
fate, and as a reward for Mr Hollande’s doggedness, Mr Chirac defied tribal
politics to back him in the 2012 presidential race.

Mr Hollande could have taken on Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 but chose instead to
stay in the background, allowing his partner Ms Royal to try her luck. His
discipline was such that he and Ms Royal, with whom he had four children,
kept the break-up of their relationship secret until the vote was over. He
had already left her for Ms Trierweiler.

Under her tutelage, he lost 22lb in politically unpalatable podginess and
adopted thinner-framed glasses.

Shrugging off the insults of his comrades and showing a new steely competence,
Mr Hollande triumphed.

Despite the makeover, Mr Hollande has not been able to shed his true political
character as a technocrat, albeit one who has learnt to empathise with
voters. He has ability to evoke the legacies of the French Revolution and
the Resistance.

However, he is quickly bogged down in technical detail and prone to hackneyed
phrases and jargon.

But fate has been kind. Mr Hollande has been able to give the impression of
being more presidential than Mr Sarkozy.

After a life of quietly swallowing the insults, Mr Hollande’s childhood
destiny has arrived.

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