Backgrouder: French PS presidential candidate Francois Hollande

Francois Hollande, former First Secretary of the French Socialist Party, won the run-off primary election on Sunday, becoming the biggest opposite party's presidential candidate for 2012 election. Francois Hollande was born in northwestern city of Rouen on Aug. 12, 1954 into a middle-class family. He is a moderate party member who favors greater integration with Europe. He has shining education background with diplomas of HEC, Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and ENA, all prestigious business and political universities in France. He was First Secretary of the Socialist Party from 1997 to 2008 and succeeded by Martine Aubry, whom he beat with obvious advantage in the run-off. He was mayor of Tulle in central France from 2001 to 2008 and is a member of parliament for the southwestern department of Correze, but has never held a national government post. Though having four children with Segolene Royal, the SP presidential candidate in 2007 who lost out the first round last Sunday, Hollande is not married. Actually, they separated after 2007 presidential election. Francois Hollande, not well-known outside France, was regarded weak in political merits, but recent polls showed he had more popularity than incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose rating has hovered around 30 percent for months.