After a sweltering summer that torched France’s forests and bled its rivers dry, could former “Rain Man” president François Hollande be the answer to the country’s woes?
The former Socialist leader who famously braved downpours through much of his time in office has crept back into the limelight, a decade after leaving the Élysée Palace with the lowest ratings in modern French history.
Hollande has been a ubiquitous figure in France’s “rentrée politique”, the late-summer frenzy of party gatherings and trade fairs traditionally marking the start of a new political season – this one leading up to next year’s presidential election.
At every stop, he has cultivated the media, laid out policy proposals and left the door wide open to a possible presidential run, telling reporters he will decide in December whether to rally behind a suitable candidate or throw his hat in the ring.
Another shot at the Élysée may sound preposterous for a man whose ratings sank as low as 4 percent in the gruelling twilight of his presidency, forcing him to become the first sitting president of the Fifth Republic not to seek a second term.
Ten years on, however, many in France have come to take a more lenient view, partly due to the unpopularity of his successor Emmanuel Macron and dissatisfaction with the pool of candidates vying to replace him.
Fading memories may also have played a part. As one journalist quipped in an offbeat interview with the former president, Hollande resurfaced “in the manner of an ex-boyfriend you agreed to meet for coffee but can’t quite remember why”.
Mocked but not hated
Hollande is not the first to see his popularity rebound years after leaving the Élysée Palace. An ageing Jacques Chirac was widely viewed as a lame-duck president at the end of his second term but is now fondly remembered by many who opposed him.
“There’s a tendency to rewrite history and judge former presidents more kindly once they’ve been out of office for some time,” said Émeric Bréhier, a former Socialist lawmaker during Hollande’s presidency who now heads the Observatory of political life at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, a left-wing think tank.
In everyday conversations, Hollande’s years in office are best remembered for the “love scooter” that whizzed him to his lover’s apartment and the relentless rain that seemed to follow his every step, from his soggy inauguration day (capped by a lightning strike on his flight to Berlin) to the sudden shower that caught him in bone-dry Afghanistan. As France battled devastating wildfires throughout the summer, some joked that only the former “Rain Main” president could put out the flames.
Often the butt of the joke, Hollande has maintained a certain likeability that sets him apart from both his successor and his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, noted Olivier Rouquan, a political analyst at the CERSA research centre in Paris.
“Hollande has been mocked and even frowned upon, but he is not hated the way Sarkozy or Macron are – except by the radical left,” he explained, referring to the enduring resentment voiced by left-wingers who felt betrayed by Hollande’s business-friendly reforms.
When he ran for the Élysée in 2012, Hollande’s “normal president” pitch was viewed by many as a welcome break from Sarkozy’s unpopular “hyper-president”. After a decade of “Jupiter” Macron, could the French be tempted by another spell of Mr Normal?
“The concept of a ‘normal president’ was widely misunderstood at the time,” Rouquan cautioned. “But the image of a relatively likeable figure, who is calm, seeks compromise and does not overreact to events, could be an asset in these turbulent times.”
Waiting in the wings
A less divisive figure than his predecessor, Hollande also lacks the loyal (but shrinking) fanbase that has stuck with ‘Sarko’ through thick and thin. Analysts say his best chance is to patiently wait in the wings, positioning himself as a fallback option should other moderate candidates run into the sand.
“He is trying to capitalise on the chaos of this early campaign phase, marked by a staggering number of would-be candidates, and the lack of a clear frontrunner in the moderate camp,” Rouquan explained.
With eight months to go before the presidential bout, polls suggest far-right leader Marine Le Pen is comfortably ahead, followed by hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon and a multitude of candidates vying for the middle ground. The lack of genuine contenders on the centre-left has offered Hollande an opening.
“In the 10 years since he left power, not a single figure on the left – aside from Mélenchon – has stood out as a natural leader or candidate,” noted Bréhier. “And that’s one key reason Hollande is back in the conversation.”
An Elabe survey published in July suggested 46 percent of voters on the left have a favourable opinion of the former president – the highest number among potential left-wing candidates for the Élysée.
Hollande has expertly navigated the maelstrom of left-wing party politics, playing the unity card to win a seat in parliament in 2024, then pushing for a break from the radical left when opprobrium of Mélenchon was at its highest. His likeliest challenger for the centre-left vote is European lawmaker Raphaël Glucksmann, who, unlike Hollande, remains largely untested.
Read moreFrench MEP Glucksmann seeks to unite the left in bid for French presidency
Needing money and endorsements, Glucksmann has agreed to take part in a Socialist-run primary next month despite not being a party member – a move he may regret now that Socialist leader Olivier Faure has joined the race. Hollande has instead shunned the vote, perhaps mindful of the crushing primary defeat that derailed Sarkozy’s comeback bid a decade ago.
While Hollande’s primary victory in 2011 helped pave the way to the Élysée, Bréhier said the former president had every reason this time to avoid getting bogged down in a dogfight on the left, pointing to a radically altered political spectrum.
“When Hollande won in 2012, French politics were still structured around the left-right divide, with the radical left and the far right large but containable,” he explained. “Now their combined weight in the polls is roughly 50 percent, which means moderates are left to fight over the remaining half. Hollande knows he must reach out to the centre.”
Setting the record straight
In interviews with the press, the former Socialist leader has called for a “sacred union of all democrats” that “transcends party lines”. He released a new book this week, titled ‘Unir’, or ‘Unite’ in English, listing roughly a hundred policy proposals for France, many of which put him at odds with his own camp.
The man who rose to power in 2012 on a pledge to slap a 75 percent supertax on the wealthiest now dismisses the ‘Zucman Tax’ championed by many on the left as “a slogan”. As the former centrist prime minister François Bayrou recently acknowledged, “the ideas he puts forward appear much more compatible (with ours) than in the past”.
If he does eventually join the race, Hollande will have a hard time eluding scrutiny of that past – which could serve as both an asset and a burden.
The former president will seek to play up his experience as the only candidate to have held the highest office. That will mean bringing up a record “that is generally viewed unfavourably”, Rouquan cautioned, though there is scope to put a positive spin on that record, in a way that would have been inaudible in 2017.
“Very few presidents can claim to have reduced France’s budget deficit and debt load,” he added. “He’s also proven he can steer the country through a major crisis like the 2015 terror attacks, a deeply traumatic event that could have fractured French society.”
After a bruising summer that laid bare the devastating effects of climate change, Hollande can also point to the landmark Paris climate agreement in 2015 as a singular achievement and an example of French leadership on the global stage – even though most countries, including France, have since failed to live up to their commitments.
“At the end of the day, moderates will examine the options on the table and look for the best way to avoid a Le Pen-Mélenchon runoff,” said Bréhier. “And many may well conclude that there were blunders under Hollande, no doubt, but that he did a decent job as a head of state and on the international stage.”
This story originally appeared on France24
