Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: François Hollande

  • After Hollande Steps Aside, Valls Is the Only Serious Candidate

    François Hollande bowed to reality on Thursday, when the Socialist Party leader announced he would not seek a second term as president of France.

    No leader in the history of the Fifth Republic has been less popular than Hollande, whose approval rating hit a 4-percent low in one survey last month.

    Hollande squandered what little goodwill he had left when Un président ne devrait pas dire ça… (“A President Should Not Say That…”) appeared last month: a tell-all book in which the outgoing president is quoted disparaging other Socialist Party bigwigs, including his prime minister, Manuel Valls, and foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault.

    Both were reportedly outraged by the publication, which dumbfounded the entire French political class. It will only help cement Hollande’s legacy as an inapt and feckless president, who failed to balance competing interest in the ruling Socialist Party and was unable to revitalize the French economy.

    Unemployment, at 10 percent, is at the same level as when Hollande took office in 2012. Growth has been lackluster ever since. (more…)

  • Hollande Torpedoes Candidacy, Socialists Seek Replacement

    French president François Hollande has exhausted what little goodwill he had left in his party by airing his views of other top officials.

    There was never any doubt that Hollande — the least popular president in French postwar history — would lose his reelection bid next year. But the Socialist Party was willing to follow him into defeat, owing to the absence of an uncontroversial successor and a political culture of deference.

    That has changed since the release of Un président ne devrait pas dire ça… (“A President Should Not Say That…”) earlier this month. (more…)

  • Hollande Doctrine? France Leads from Behind in Mali

    Paris’ gunships struck Islamist targets in the northern Malian town of Kona on Friday in support of a combined ground intervention by African troops from the Economic Community of West African States. French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian reported that during the operation, the French military suffered one casualty.

    On the works for months, the intervention mandated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2085 is meant to put an end to the swift takeover of northern Mali that Tuareg and Islamist groups undertook, in the process causing the political collapse of the central government through a military coup.

    Instability in the Sahel has heightened since last year’s collapse of Muammar al-Gaddafi’s regime in Libya during a popular uprising that was supported by NATO air and naval forces. The “Arab Spring” in Libya caused a considerable power vacuum which brought political disunity along that country’s Mediterranean coast, loss of control over southern Libya and significant advanced weaponry in the hands of smugglers who have been able to export it to such conflict areas as Gaza and Syria. (more…)