Paris (CNN) — Francois Hollande, the winner of Sunday’s presidential runoff, thanked his supporters in a victory speech and promised to be a president for all of France.
“Many people have been waiting for this moment for many long years. Others, younger, have never known such a time. … I am proud to be capable to bring about hope again,” he told a crowd of cheering supporters at a rally in Tulle.
“Tonight, there are not two Frances. … There is only one France, only one nation that is united with the same destiny,” Hollande said.
The president-elect congratulated French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who earlier conceded to Hollande as results from exit polls and official tallies in the runoff election came in.
“I carry the entire responsibility for this defeat, and I’m going to say why. I fought for the values of responsibility, and I’m not a man who does not accept his responsibilities,” Sarkozy said from his Paris campaign headquarters, as members of the crowd shouted, “No!”
Biography from Wikipedia
François Gérard Georges Hollande (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa ɔlɑ̃d]; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who is the President-elect of France. He also served as the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party from 1997 to 2008 and as a Deputy of the National Assembly of France for Corrèze’s 1st Constituency since 1997, and previously represented that seat from 1988 to 1993. He was the Mayor of Tulle from 2001 to 2008, and was the President of the General Council of Corrèze from 2008 to 2012. He was elected as President of France on 6 May 2012, defeating the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.[1]
Hollande was born in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Upper Normandy to a middle-class family. His mother, Nicole Frédérique Marguerite Tribert, was a social worker (1927–2009), and his father, Georges Gustave Hollande, an ear, nose, and throat doctor, who “had once run for the extreme right in local politics”.[2][3][4][5][6] The surname “Hollande” is “believed to come from Calvinist ancestors who escaped Holland (the Netherlands) in the 16th century and took the name of their old country.”[7] Hollande was raised Catholic.[7]
Categories: Europe