Ségolène Royal - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Marie-Ségolène Royal known as Ségolène Royal, is a French politician. She is the president of the Poitou-Charentes

Poitou-Charentes

Poitou-Charentes is an administrative region in central western France comprising four departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne. The regional capital is Poitiers.-Politics:The regional council is composed of 56 members...

Regional Council, a former member of the National Assembly

French National Assembly

The French National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. The upper house is the Senate ....

, a former government minister

French government ministers

The Cabinet of France is a body of top administration members of the Prime Minister's Cabinet. In French, the word gouvernement generally refers to the "Administration", but in a narrower sense to the Cabinet.The Council is responsible to the French National Assembly...

, and a prominent member of the French Socialist Party

Socialist Party (France)

The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in France and the largest party of the French centre-left. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France, along with the center-right Union for a Popular Movement...

. The first woman in France to be nominated by a major party, she was the Socialist candidate in the 2007 French presidential election

French presidential election, 2007

The 2007 French presidential election, the ninth of the Fifth French Republic was held to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France for a five-year term.The winner, decided on 5 and 6 May 2007, was Nicolas Sarkozy...

but lost to Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....

on 6 May 2007. In 2008, Royal narrowly lost to Martine Aubry

Martine Aubry

Martine Aubry is a French politician. She has been the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party since November 2008 and Mayor of Lille since March 2001...

in the Socialist Party's election for First Secretary at the Party's twenty-second national congress

Reims Congress

The Reims Congress was the twenty-second national congress of the French Socialist Party , taking place from 14 to 16 November 2008 in the city of Reims in the Marne....

. On 30 November 2010, Royal announced her intentions to again seek the PS nomination

French Socialist Party presidential primary, 2011

The 2011 French Socialist Party presidential primary was the first open primary of the French Socialist Party and Radical Party of the Left for selecting their candidate for the 2012 presidential election. The filing deadline for primary nomination papers was fixed at 13 July 2011 and six...

for President in 2012.

Early life

Ségolène Royal was born in the military base of Ouakam, Dakar

Dakar

Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...

, French West Africa

French West Africa

French West Africa was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan , French Guinea , Côte d'Ivoire , Upper Volta , Dahomey and Niger...

(now Senegal

Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

) on 22 September 1953, the daughter of Hélène Dehaye and Jacques Royal, a former artillery officer and aide to the mayor of Chamagne

Chamagne

Chamagne is a commune in the Vosges department in Lorraine in northeastern France....

(Vosges

Vosges

Vosges is a French department, named after the local mountain range. It contains the hometown of Joan of Arc, Domrémy.-History:The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France, created on February 9, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was made of territories that had been...

).

Her parents had eight children in nine years: Marie-Odette, Marie-Nicole, Gérard, Marie-Ségolène, Antoine, Paul, Henri and Sigisbert.

After secondary school, Marie-Ségolène attended a local university where she graduated 2nd in her class with a degree in Economics. Her eldest sister then suggested she prepare the entrance exam to the elite Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris

Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris

The Institut d'études politiques de Paris , simply referred to as Sciences Po , is a public research and higher education institution in Paris, France, specialised in the social sciences. It has the status of grand établissement, which allows its admissions process to be highly selective...

popularly called Sciences Po, which she attended on scholarship. There she discovered politics of class and feminism. ("Sciences Po" at the time was 85% upper-class Parisian, mostly male.)
In summer 1971, she was an au pair

Au pair

An au pair is a domestic assistant from a foreign country working for, and living as part of, a host family. Typically, au pairs take on a share of the family's responsibility for childcare as well as some housework, and receive a small monetary allowance for personal use...

in Dublin, Ireland. In 1972, at the age of 19, Royal sued her father because he refused to divorce her mother and pay alimony

Alimony

Alimony is a U.S. term denoting a legal obligation to provide financial support to one's spouse from the other spouse after marital separation or from the ex-spouse upon divorce...

and child support

Child support

In family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...

to finance the children's education. She won the case after many years in court, shortly before Jacques Royal died of lung cancer in 1981. Six of the eight children had refused to see him again, Ségolène included.

Royal, like most of France's political elite, is a graduate of the École Nationale d'Administration

École nationale d'administration

The École Nationale d'Administration , one of the most prestigious of French graduate schools , was created in 1945 by Charles de Gaulle to democratise access to the senior civil service. It is now entrusted with the selection and initial training of senior French officials...

(ENA). She was in the same class as her former partner of 30 years, François Hollande

François Hollande

François Gérard Georges Hollande is a French politician. From 1997 to 2008, he was the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party. He has also served as a Deputy of the National Assembly of France, representing the first constituency of Corrèze, since 1997. He previously represented that seat...

(whom she met at a party), as well as Dominique de Villepin

Dominique de Villepin

Dominique Marie François René Galouzeau de Villepin is a French politician who served as the Prime Minister of France from 31 May 2005 to 17 May 2007....

(prime minister under Jacques Chirac

Jacques Chirac

Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...

). Each class year at the ENA receives a nickname to distinguish it: Royal tried to get her peers to name their class after Louise Michel

Louise Michel

Louise Michel was a French anarchist, school teacher and medical worker. She often used the pseudonym Clémence and was also known as the red virgin of Montmartre...

, a revolutionary from the 1870s, but they chose the name "Voltaire

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

" instead. During her time at the ENA, Royal also dropped "Marie" from her hyphenated first name because she thought it had been chosen by her father for his daughters out of a degrading and archaic view of the role of women.

Political career

After graduating in 1980, she elected to serve as a judge (conseiller) of an administrative court

Administrative court

Greece, as a civil law country has administrative courts. The establishment of those courts can be found in article 94 of the Constitution of the Hellenic Republic 1975, as revised in 2001. The administrative courts are composed from districts Courts of First Instance, district Courts of Appeal and...

before she was noticed by President François Mitterrand

François Mitterrand

François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...

's special adviser Jacques Attali

Jacques Attali

Jacques Attali is a French economist, writer and senior civil servant.Former adviser to President François Mitterrand and first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, he founded the non-profit organization PlaNet Finance and was nominated President of the Commission for...

and recruited to his staff in 1982. She held the junior rank of chargée de mission from 1982 to 1988.

She decided to become a candidate for the 1988 legislative election

French legislative election, 1988

French legislative elections took place on 5 June and 12 June 1988 to elect the 9th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic, one month after the re-election of François Mitterrand as President of France....

; she registered in the rural, Western Deux-Sèvres

Deux-Sèvres

Deux-Sèvres is a French département. Deux-Sèvres literally means "two Sèvres": the Sèvre Nantaise and the Sèvre Niortaise are two rivers which have their sources in the department.-History:...

Département. Her candidacy was an example of the French political tradition of parachutage (parachuting), appointing promising "Parisian" political staffers as candidates in provincial districts to test their mettle. She was up against an entrenched UDF incumbent, and François Mitterrand is said to have told her: "You will not win, but you will next time." Straddling strongly Catholic and Protestant areas, that district had been held by conservatives since World War II.
She did win against the odds, and remarked: "Pour un parachutage, l'atterrissage est réussi." ("As far as parachuting

Parachuting

Parachuting, also known as skydiving, is the action of exiting an aircraft and returning to earth with the aid of a parachute. It may or may not involve a certain amount of free-fall, a time during which the parachute has not been deployed and the body gradually accelerates to terminal...

goes, the landing was a success").

After this election, she served as representative in the National Assembly

French National Assembly

The French National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. The upper house is the Senate ....

for the Deux-Sèvres' 2nd constituency (1988–1992, 1993–1997, 2002–2007).

On 28 March 2004, she was elected (with more than 55%) president of the region Poitou-Charentes

Poitou-Charentes

, notably defeating Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin

Jean-Pierre Raffarin

Jean-Pierre Raffarin is a French conservative politician and senator for Vienne.Jean-Pierre Raffarin served as the Prime Minister of France from 6 May 2002 to 31 May 2005, resigning after France's rejection of the referendum on the European Union draft constitution. However, after Raffarin...

's protégée, Élisabeth Morin, in his home region. She kept her National Assembly seat until June 2007, when she chose not to run in the legislative election

French legislative election, 2007

The French legislative elections took place on 10 June and 17 June 2007 to elect the 13th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic, a few weeks after the French presidential election run-off on 6 May. 7,639 candidates stood for 577 seats, including France's overseas possessions...

, in agreement with one of her presidential campaign's promises. She organized a run-off between two contenders; the winner, Delphine Batho, went on to win the district for her and Royal's party.

Governmental functions
- Minister of Environment : 1992–1993.
- Minister of School Education : 1997–2000.
- Minister of Family and Children : 2000–2001.
- Minister of Family, Children and Disabled persons : 2001–2002.
Electoral mandates
- Member of the National Assembly of France for Deux-Sèvres 2nd : 1988–1992 (Became minister in 1992) / 1993–1997 (Became minister in 1997) / 2002–2007. Elected in 1988, re-elected in 1993, 1997, 2002.
- Regional Council
  - President of the Regional Council of Poitou-Charentes
    Poitou-Charentes
    Poitou-Charentes is an administrative region in central western France comprising four departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne. The regional capital is Poitiers.-Politics:The regional council is composed of 56 members...
    
    : Since 2004, re-elected in 2010.
  - Regional councillor of Poitou-Charentes
    Poitou-Charentes
    Poitou-Charentes is an administrative region in central western France comprising four departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne. The regional capital is Poitiers.-Politics:The regional council is composed of 56 members...
    
    : March–April 1992 (Resignation) / Since 2004, re-elected in 2010.
- General Council
  - General councillor of Deux-Sèvres
    Deux-Sèvres
    Deux-Sèvres is a French département. Deux-Sèvres literally means "two Sèvres": the Sèvre Nantaise and the Sèvre Niortaise are two rivers which have their sources in the department.-History:...
    
    : 1992–1998.
- Municipal Council
  - Municipal councillor of Niort
    Niort
    Niort is a commune in the Deux-Sèvres department in western France.The Latin name of the city was Novioritum.The population of Niort is 60,486 and more than 137,000 people live in the urban area....
    
    : 1995–2001.
  - Municipal councillor of Melle, Deux-Sèvres
    Melle, Deux-Sèvres
    Melle is a commune in the Deux-Sèvres department in western France.It is today best known as the home town of Ségolène Royal, the 2007 Socialist candidate for the election of the Presidency of the Republic. Laurent Cantet was also born here.-History:...
    
    1989–1995.
  - Municipal councillor of Trouville-sur-Mer
    Trouville-sur-Mer
    Trouville-sur-Mer, commonly referred to as Trouville, is a commune in the Calvados department in the Basse-Normandie region in northwestern France.Trouville-sur-Mer borders Deauville...
    
    : 1983–1986 (Resignation).

2007 Presidential candidacy

On 22 September 2005 Paris Match

Paris Match

Paris Match is a French weekly magazine. It covers major national and international news along with celebrity lifestyle features. It was founded in 1949 by the industrialist Jean Prouvost....

published an interview in which she declared that she was considering running for the presidency in 2007. In 2006 the CPE (first employment contract) laws were proposed with large protests

2006 labour protests in France

The 2006 youth protests in France occurred throughout France during February, March, and April 2006 as a result of opposition to a measure set to deregulate labour...

as a result. Rather than going to the organized protest, she voted a law in her "région" whereby no company using that type of contract would receive the Région's subsidies. The government backed down and stated that the law would be put on the statute book, but that it would not be applied. After this event Royal was tipped as the lead contender in what is dubbed the "Sarko-Ségo" race against Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy

. Until that time, she had not been thought a likely candidate as she had stayed out of the Socialist Party's power struggles.

On 7 April 2006, Royal launched an Internet-led electoral campaign at ("Desires for the future"), publishing the first of ten chapters of her political manifesto

Manifesto

A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...

.

By the beginning of September, her intentions had become quite clear. She has said that only widespread sexism in the Socialist Party had prevented it from rallying around her candidacy as it would have had she been a man. She announced an official team to promote her campaign on 30 August. At this point, polls showed her to be much more popular than her closest competitor, former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin

Lionel Jospin

Lionel Jospin is a French politician, who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.Jospin was the Socialist Party candidate for President of France in the elections of 1995 and 2002. He was narrowly defeated in the final runoff election by Jacques Chirac in 1995...

, and other Socialist heavyweights Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn , often referred to in the media, and by himself, as DSK, is a French economist, lawyer, politician, and member of the French Socialist Party...

, Jack Lang

Jack Lang (French politician)

Jack Mathieu Émile Lang is a French politician. A member of the Socialist Party, he served as France's Minister of Culture from 1981 to 1986 and 1988 to 1992, and as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993 and 2000 to 2002. He was also the Mayor of Blois from 1989 to 2000...

, another former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius

Laurent Fabius

Laurent Fabius is a French Socialist politician. He served as Prime Minister from 17 July 1984 to 20 March 1986. He was 37 years old when he was appointed and is, so far, the youngest Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic.-Early life:...

and François Hollande

François Hollande

.

Her status as a presidential candidate became more likely on 28 September 2006, when Lionel Jospin

Lionel Jospin

, the Socialist former Prime Minister and a fixture in French politics for nearly three decades, announced that he would not run after all. Jack Lang followed suit. On 16 November, Royal defeated Laurent Fabius

Laurent Fabius

and Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn , often referred to in the media, and by himself, as DSK, is a French economist, lawyer, politician, and member of the French Socialist Party...

in the French Socialist Party

Socialist Party (France)

primary, becoming the party's candidate for the 2007 presidential election

French presidential election, 2007

. The Socialist party's members voted 60.69% for her and gave a bit under 20% each to the more traditional contenders. She also won in 101 of 104 of the Socialist Party's fédérations, losing only Haute-Corse

Haute-Corse

Haute-Corse is a French department. It constitutes the northern part of the island of Corsica.- History :The department was formed on 15 September 1975, when the department of Corse was divided into Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud...

, Mayotte

Mayotte

Mayotte is an overseas department and region of France consisting of a main island, Grande-Terre , a smaller island, Petite-Terre , and several islets around these two. The archipelago is located in the northern Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean, namely between northwestern Madagascar and...

and Seine-Maritime

Seine-Maritime

Seine-Maritime is a French department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France. It is situated on the northern coast of France, at the mouth of the Seine, and includes the cities of Rouen and Le Havre...

(the latter being the home region of Laurent Fabius

Laurent Fabius

One of her top advisors, Éric Besson

Éric Besson

Éric Besson is a French politician and Minister of Industry, Energy and the Digital economy under the Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, Christine Lagarde...

, resigned soon afterwards over a disagreement about the costs of this programme, which he believes could reach €35 billion, while others in the campaign team wanted to delay bringing out that figure.[The figure was equivalent to that of Mr. Sarkozy's but higher than Mr. Bayrou's, who was becoming a key figure in the race.] This led to an unusually bitter fall-out, and Mr Besson writing a book titled Qui connaît Madame Royal ? (Who knows Mrs Royal?), published on 20 March. In it, Besson accuses Royal of being a populist, an authoritarian and a luddite

Luddite

The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested – often by destroying mechanised looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life...

and says that he will not vote for her and hopes that she is not elected. He then went on to join the Sarkozy campaign and was rewarded with a junior position in the next government on 18 May 2007.

Following the first round of the presidential election, she faced Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy

in the second round of voting on 6 May in a two-way runoff.
In the final round of voting on Sunday, 6 May, her opponent Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy

won the presidency with 53% of the vote. Royal conceded defeat and wished Sarkozy the best, requesting he keep her supporters in mind.

Royal later revealed she had offered defeated centrist candidate, François Bayrou

François Bayrou

François Bayrou is a French centrist politician, president of Union for French Democracy since 1998 and was a candidate in the 2002 and 2007 French presidential elections. In the first round, he received 18.6% of the vote, finishing in 3rd place and therefore was eliminated from the race....

, the premiership

Prime Minister of France

The Prime Minister of France in the Fifth Republic is the head of government and of the Council of Ministers of France. The head of state is the President of the French Republic...

should she be elected.

2008 Socialist Party leadership election

Ségolène Royal entered the leadership election of the Socialist Party to replace her former common law husband Francois Hollande

François Hollande

as head of the party. She garnered the largest plurality of votes in the first round of voting, but not enough to win outright; she was eventually narrowly defeated in the second round by rival Martine Aubry

Martine Aubry

Martine Aubry is a French politician. She has been the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party since November 2008 and Mayor of Lille since March 2001...

by the margin of 42 votes. After a vote recount, Aubry was declared the winner 25 November 2008, with the margin widening to 102 votes. Royal has announced her intentions to contest the result. Royal has blamed party leaders and her former partner for her loss in the 2007 election.

2012 Presidential election

Royal ran in the French Socialist Party presidential primary election of 2011, the party's first ever open primary. She arrived 4th in the first round on 9 October 2011 with a mere 6,95% of votes, considerably below the figures suggested by opinion polls.

Rumours over personal issues

In January 2007 a persistent rumour circulated on the Internet that Royal and Hollande avoided paying solidarity tax on wealth

Solidarity tax on wealth

The solidarity tax on wealth is an annual direct wealth tax on those in France having assets in excess of €800,000, . It was one of the Socialist Party's 1981 electoral program's measures, 110 Propositions for France...

by having their three properties owned by a private real estate company. (This came soon after a tax-dodging controversy about singer and tax exile

Tax exile

A tax exile is one who chooses to leave a country with a high tax burden and instead to reside in a foreign nation or jurisdiction which takes a lower portion of earnings. Going into tax exile is a means of tax mitigation or avoidance.-Legal status:...

Johnny Hallyday

Johnny Hallyday is a French singer and actor. An icon in the French-speaking world since the beginning of his career, he was considered by some to have been the French Elvis Presley. He was married for 15 years to one of the most popular French female singers: Sylvie Vartan...

, whom Royal and others criticised.) After UMP deputy Jacques Godfrain relayed the accusations, Royal and Hollande disclosed the exact state of their wealth, and showed that they do indeed pay the tax. Except for Mr. Sarkozy, other major candidates followed suit, and Hollande announced that he was suing Godfrain and a newspaper over the allegations.

On 18 January 2007 Royal suspended her spokesman Arnaud Montebourg

Arnaud Montebourg

Arnaud Montebourg is a French politician, and a deputy of the fifth district of Saône-et-Loire to the French National Assembly for the Socialist Party. He has also been elected president of the local assembly of Saône et Loire after local elections in 2008...

for a month, after he quipped on a television show that "Ségolène Royal has only one flaw: her partner". This came amidst speculation of a growing rift between Royal and Hollande. In June 2007, she announced their separation.

Since the separation, political relations between Royal and Hollande have been tense, though they have both stated that they remain friends. In the 2008 Socialist Party leadership election, Hollande backed another candidate, and Royal has blamed him and the party establishment for her 2007 Presidential defeat. Hollande, who had an affair with a magazine journalist up until the separation, tried to go back to Royal, who refused his offers.

Policies

Royal has tended to campaign on family and other socially-oriented issues, rather than on economic or foreign policy issues. For instance, she has mounted campaigns against the exposure of children to violent television shows, including cartoons (see her 1989 book, listed below, Le Ras-le-bol des bébés zappeurs, roughly translated as "The Channel-Surfing Kids Are Fed Up"), and more generally has taken a stand on several issues regarding family values and the protection of children.

Economy

Royal opposes movements of jobs between EU countries and outsourcing to developing countries.
Royal stated as part of her 100-point platform that if elected, she would raise the lowest state pensions by five percent, increase the monthly minimum wage to €1,500, raise benefits of handicapped citizens, implement state-paid rental deposits for the poorest citizens, and guarantee a job or job training to every student within six months of graduation. She pledged to abolish a flexible work contract for small companies. She pledged free contraception for all young women and a €10,000 interest-free loan for all young people. She did not directly address whether additional taxes would need to be raised to fund these programs, stating that they can be paid for by cutting waste in government.

Environment

The Socialist Party website states that during her tenure as Minister for the Environment, 1992–1993, Royal campaigned actively and successfully for the "Law on the treatment and recycling

Recycling

Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...

of refuse

Waste

Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...

" (La loi sur le traitement et le recyclage des déchets), the "Law to preserve the countryside" (La loi sur la reconquête des paysages), a "Save our countrysides, savour their products" campaign to provide proper labelling for the products of 100 local areas (opération « Sauvons nos paysages, savourons leurs produits »), and the "Law against noise pollution" (La loi de lutte contre le bruit). She provided compensation for people adversely affected by airport noise.

Education

During her tenure as Minister-delegate for the Family, Children, and the Handicapped, 2000–2002, Royal was active in the re-launch of the Priority Education Zones program (ZEP / zone d'éducation prioritaire), the creation of a government student lunch program, the implementation of language instruction as a priority in primary schools, the creation of a national home-tutoring program, Heures de Soutien Scolaire, and the creation of programs for parental involvement in schools, "la Semaine des parents à l'école", and national campaigns for the elections of parent-representatives. She also campaigned for the creation of local education and citizenship education contracts, the "Initiatives citoyennes" program for teaching children how to live together, the law on "Defense of children's rights and campaign against violence in the schools" (Loi de juin 1998 relative à la prévention et à la répression des infractions sexuelles ainsi qu'à la protection des mineurs), the "Campaign against hazing

Hazing

Hazing is a term used to describe various ritual and other activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group....

rituals in higher education" (Loi de juin 1998 contre le bizutage), the "Campaign against violence and racketeering" which included implementation of the "SOS Violence" telephone number, and the implementation of mandatory civics instruction in secondary schools.

In January 2006, she criticized secondary school teachers (workers of state public service) who give private lessons outside school hours, saying that they should spend more time in school. When a bootleg video of the speech surfaced on the Internet in November 2006, the teachers' union SNES rebuffed her, requesting that she renounce her proposal.

Family and social affairs

In 1989, Ségolène Royal authored a book called The Channel-Surfing Kids Are Fed-Up, where she criticized Japanese animation

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

(then dominant in certain TV programs) as poor quality production detrimental for children.

Royal favours, and has worked for, the "Parental rights and obligations act" (Loi sur l'autorité parentale), the "Women's rights reform and anonymous childbirth act" (l'accouchement sous X), the creation of paternity leave, the creation of 40,000 new spaces in French nursery schools, and Social housing reform. She has been active in campaigns providing for "Parental time-off provisions and financial support for child illness care", Special education

Special education

Special education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...

support (parents d'enfants handicapés), "Benefit allocations for students starting the new school year" (Allocation de rentrée scolaire), and the "Prostitution of Minors Act" (Loi contre la prostitution des mineurs) which provides penal measures for clients. Royal has supported the "Law against child pornography", the creation of the association "Childhood and the Media" (Enfance et média) against violence in the media, the creation of the Plan Handiscole for the education of handicapped children and adolescents and their integration into life at school, programs for mass and individual transportation, and the creation of the program "Tourism and the Handicapped" (Tourisme et handicap).
In 2009, she declared herself to be "profoundly shocked" by statements of Pope Benedict XVI which claimed that condoms promote AIDS, although they in fact help prevent it. Royal added that "the responsibility of any religious leader" is to "defend the principle of life, and certainly not to urge human beings towards their deaths."

When she accepted her nomination as the Socialist presidential candidate, Royal said, "There is a strong correlation between the status of a woman and the state of justice or injustice in a country." According to an article in Ms. magazine

Ms. magazine

Ms. is an American feminist magazine co-founded by American feminist and activist Gloria Steinem and founding editor Letty Cottin Pogrebin together with founding editors Patricia Carbine, Joanne Edgar, Nina Finkelstein, and Mary Peacock, that first appeared in 1971 as an insert in New York magazine...

, French women currently earn 80% of a male counterpart's salary.

Royal has been a long-standing critic of violence on television. She has voiced opinions in the past linking youth crime to exposure to pornography and television violence.
She also described the M6

Métropole 6

M6, also known as Metropole television, is the most profitable private national French TV channel and the third most watched television network in the French-speaking world...

programme Loft Story, imitating the internationally popular Big Brother TV series

Big Brother (TV series)

Big Brother is a television show in which a group of people live together in a large house, isolated from the outside world but continuously watched by television cameras. Each series lasts for around three months, and there are usually fewer than 15 participants. The housemates try to win a cash...

, as contrary to principles of human dignity and risking transforming viewers into voyeurs instead of providing quality programming.

A law passed in February 2002, introduced by Royal on behalf of the Jospin government, allows some parental authority to be granted to same-sex partners. The law amended Article 377 of the Civil Code in allowing a parent to ask a judge to share his/her parental authority with a partner. Article 377-1, added by the law, ensures that "delegation may provide, for the needs of education of a child, that the father and mother, or one of them, shall share all or part of the exercise of parental authority with the third person delegatee".

In a June 2006 interview with LGBT

LGBT

LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

publication Têtu

Têtu

Têtu is a gay magazine published in France. It is subtitled in French le magazine des gays et lesbiennes .-History:...

, Royal said "opening up marriage to same-sex couples is needed in the name of equality, visibility and respect" and said that if her party formed the next government she would introduce a bill to legalise same-sex marriage

Same-sex marriage in France

Same-sex marriage cannot legally be performed in France, though some foreign same-sex marriages are recognized and the PACS, which confers some of the same rights and responsibilities as marriage, is available to same-sex couples....

and adoption.

According to her 2007 campaign website, Royal has advocated a policy of more humane prisons and supports creating better conditions inside penal institutions. The website states that she supports a system of rehabilitating offenders and reintegrating them into society.

Foreign policy

Foreign affairs are one of the key responsibilities of the French President. She initially appeared to have few opinions on key subjects, such as the accession of Turkey to the European Union

Accession of Turkey to the European Union

Turkey's application to accede to the European Union was made on 14 April 1987. Turkey has been an associate member of the European Union and its predecessors since 1963...

, merely responding, "my opinion is that of the French people." On another crucial issue the subject of the Iranian nuclear program, Royal also appeared insufficiently briefed. She initially took a very hard line in a televised debate, contending that any nuclear power programme in Iran must be prevented since it would inevitably lead to weapons production. When she was criticised by French politicians for not understanding the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to...

– which gives signatories the right to nuclear power for non-military purposes – Royal softened her position and, through a spokesman, said that a civil nuclear program should be allowed as long as UN inspectors were permitted to conduct spot checks.

International tours

Since December 2006 Royal has been travelling abroad extensively in order to enhance her international profile and credibility, but her efforts have been set back by a series of blunders, which her political opponents at UMP have been quick to jump on.

Middle East

In early December 2006 controversy followed a brief tour of the Middle East. Meeting Hezbollah politician Ali Ammar, she took exception to his use of the euphemism "Zionist entity

Zionist entity

Zionist entity is a phrase often used by Arabs and Muslims as a pejorative for the State of Israel. The term is described as a means of expressing hostility towards Israel, refusing to acknowledge its existence as a state, and denying its right to exist. Virginia Q...

," but did not take issue with his comparison of the Palestinian territories

Palestinian territories

The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...

to France under German occupation during World War II. This attracted criticism in France and in Israel which Royal visited next. However, the French ambassador to Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

, Bernard Emié, backed her explanation that she did not hear "the offending remarks" – the discussion took place via an interpreter supplied by the Lebanese parliament. In the same visit, Royal thanked the minister for being so "frank" when he described US foreign policy in the Middle East as "unlimited American insanity."

China

Royal visited China in January 2007; after speaking with a lawyer in that country she noted to the press that he had pointed out to her that the Chinese legal system was "faster" than the French one. She was immediately reminded by her opponents at home that the Chinese system orders 10,000 executions each year, and that defence lawyers there must be authorized by the Communist Party

Communist Party of China

The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...

. In reality, she was defending commercial justice speed.
She however brought up with her hosts the fate of three Chinese journalists recently imprisoned, and criticised the meekness of French entrepreneurs in tackling new markets such as China. Royal was criticised by French and international media by what was called 'mangling the French language' in a soundbite delivered on the Great Wall of China

Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in northern China, built originally to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire against intrusions by various nomadic groups...

. She used the word bravitude instead of the word bravoure, which means bravery.

Canada: Support for the Quebec independence movement

In January 2007, during a meeting with Quebec opposition leader and Parti Québécois

Parti Québécois

The Parti Québécois is a centre-left political party that advocates national sovereignty for the province of Quebec and secession from Canada. The Party traditionally has support from the labour movement. Unlike many other social-democratic parties, its ties with the labour movement are informal...

head André Boisclair

André Boisclair

André Boisclair is a politician in Quebec, Canada. He was the leader of the Parti Québécois, a social democratic and separatist party in Quebec....

, she declared her support for the Quebec sovereignty movement

Quebec sovereignty movement

The Quebec sovereignty movement refers to both the political movement and the ideology of values, concepts and ideas that promote the secession of the province of Quebec from the rest of Canada...

in its aim to secede from Canada. Royal said Quebec and France share common values, including "sovereignty and Quebec's freedom." Soon after, Royal took a phone call from comedian Gérald Dahan pretending to be Quebec Premier Jean Charest

Jean Charest

John James "Jean" Charest, PC, MNA is a Canadian politician who has been the 29th Premier of Quebec since 2003. He was leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1993 to 1998 and has been leader of the Quebec Liberal Party since 1998....

, and was tricked into making a quip about Corsica

Corsica

Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....

's independence: "Not all French people would be opposed." She then added, "But don't repeat that or we'll have another scandal on our hands."

On Afghanistan

On 5 April 2007, when commenting on the kidnapping of two Frenchmen by the Taliban in Afghanistan, Royal called for sanctions to be imposed by the United Nations against regimes like the Taliban. This comment was widely interpreted as indicating that Royal did not understand that the Taliban no longer formed the Afghan government and that she was clueless on international matters.

Personal life

From the late 1970s, Ségolène Royal was the private-life partner of François Hollande

François Hollande

, former head of the French Socialist Party

Socialist Party (France)

, whom she met at ENA. The couple had four children: law student Thomas (b. 1984), Clémence (b. 1985), Julien (b. 1987) and Flora (b. 1993). They were neither married (considering it too "bourgeois") nor bounded by a PACS (pacte civil de solidarité

Pacte civil de solidarité

In France, a pacte civil de solidarité commonly known as a PACS /paks/ , is a form of civil union between two adults for organising their joint life. It brings rights and responsibilities, but less so than marriage...

, which provides for a civil union between two adults, regardless of gender), contrary to the rumors. A news agency leaked news of their separation in June 2007, on the evening of the legislative election

French legislative election, 2007

. According to the Guardian, she had asked Hollande "to move out of the house" and pursue his new love interest "which has been detailed in books and newspapers" – a reference to a much-discussed chapter by journalists explaining how Hollande was having a long-term affair with a journalist.

Royal's eldest son, Thomas Hollande, served as an adviser to her during her presidential candidacy, working on a website designed to appeal to young voters.

Her brother Antoine named their brother Gérard Royal

Gérard Royal

Gérard Royal is a former agent of the French intelligence agency Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure , who is accused of being one of those responsible for the bombing of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior...

as the agent who placed the bomb that sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior

Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior

The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique, was an operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure , carried out on July 10, 1985...

. But other sources claim that this statement is exaggerated and that Gérard was part of the logistics team.

Royal's cousin Anne-Christine Royal followed the paternal side of the family and has been a candidate of the far-right Front National

Front National (France)

The National Front is a political party in France. The party was founded in 1972, seeking to unify a variety of French far-right currents of the time. Jean-Marie Le Pen was the party's first leader and the undisputed centre of the party from its start until his resignation in 2011...

party at a local election in Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

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