Francois Hollande
François GĂŠrard Georges Nicolas Hollande is the 24th and current President of France. Hollande was born 12 August 1954 in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Upper Normandy. He attended HEC Paris, the Institut d\'ĂŠtudes politiques de Paris (Paris Institute of Political Studies), and the Ăcole nationale d\'administration. He graduated from ENA in 1980 and chose to enter the prestigious Cour des comptes. He lived in the United States in the summer of 1974 while he was a university student. Immediately after graduating, he was employed as a councillor in the Court of Audit. After volunteering as a student to work for François Mitterrand\'s ultimately unsuccessful campaign in the 1974 presidential election, Hollande joined the Socialist Party five years later. He was quickly spotted by Jacques Attali, a senior adviser to Mitterrand, who arranged for Hollande to stand for election to the French National Assembly in 1981 in Corrèze against future President Jacques Chirac. He would go on to become a Special Adviser to the newly elected President Mitterrand. He 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 from 1988 to 1993 and then again from 1997 to 2012. He also served as the Mayor of Tulle from 2001 to 2008 and the President of the General Council of Corrèze from 2008 to 2012. As president of France, François Hollande is also ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He was elected President of France on 6 May 2012, defeating the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, and was sworn in on 15 May. He is the second Socialist President of the Fifth French Republic, after François Mitterrand who served from 1981 to 1995. He is also the first President to be elected without having prior experience as a Minister and / or Junior Minister since Paul Deschanel in 1920.
