Hollande Not Running

On Thursday, December 1st, Francois Hollande, the President of France, announced that he would not be running in the upcoming election. Coming from months of low approval ratings, high unemployment rates, and the rise in right-wing extreme views in France (Le Pene comes to mind), this is not a surprising decision. Nevertheless, Hollande kept the country in a state of confusion before his decision was made clear on Thursday. In a statement, Hollande expressed his choice more clearly, highlighting the issues his run would have of the left’s chances of victory: “As a Socialist, because that is my life’s commitment, I cannot accept, I cannot come to terms with the dispersion of the left, with its splitting up”…“because that would remove all hope of winning in the face of conservatism and, worse yet, of extremism.” Before his decision was announced, a predicted Hollande run would have damaged the future for the socialist movement, as many of his colleagues warned with survey’s coming in with 4% of the vote. In other words, not running may have been the best decision he could have made to save the future of a socialist candidate victory. The biggest threat to the socialist movement is perhaps the candidates from the right: Former Prime Minister, Francois Fillon, was recently chosen on Sunday to represent the center-right Republican Party as well as Marine Le Pen, the candidate for the far-right National Front Party. The two have risen in popularity due to global trends of the rising-right. The right in France has capitalized on “a wave of nationalist fervor, anger over immigration and worries about Islamist terrorism”, much like the U.S. and nations in Western Europe.

Following the right-wing politics of Sarkozy, President Hollande was a breath of fresh air for liberals in France, running on a platform of old-fashioned Socialism. However, his policies changed once in office, the most shocking being the tax breaks he provided for big companies. His biggest failure can be seen as not achieving a lower unemployment rate, which he commented on during his announcement on Thursday: “The major commitment I made to you was to lower the unemployment rate” … “and I devoted to that, with my government, all of my energy, took all of the risks”. His presidency has some positive results, for example the legalization of same-sex marriage, the climate change accords, and helping France’s schools. Despite these efforts, Hollande’s policies remained unclear. Without question, the left is looking forward to a clearer platform for their party.