Ex-president Francois Hollande emerges as surprise candidate in French election
- The former leader from 2012 to 2017 had left office with record levels of unpopularity and is detested by some within the radical left
Former French Socialist president Francois Hollande on Saturday said he is to stand again for parliament in legislative elections – a political comeback that took even his allies on the left by surprise.
Hollande, France’s president from 2012-2017, left office with record levels of unpopularity and is detested by some within the radical left while even the Socialist leadership regard him with suspicion.
But he has had a relatively high media profile in the weeks leading up to President Emmanuel Macron’s dramatic calling of snap elections to combat the rise of the far-right.
Hollande said he will stand as an MP for the southwestern Correze department for the New Popular Front, a left-wing union for the elections including Socialists, hard-left, Greens and Communists.
“An exceptional decision for an exceptional situation,” Hollande told reporters in the department’s main town of Tulle, describing his comeback.
Hollande has already backed the new broad left-wing union saying that we “must all do everything to make sure the far-right does not come to power in France”.