2 questions:
They need to win more than 50% of the vote to become president, correct? If so, François Hollande winning by 51.7% is not a tremendous margin?
Is Hollande anything like François Mitterrand was, in terms of his policies, and character?
By latest count, Hollande did not get 50% of Tge votes case, as 2% cast blank ballots. He did get 51.6% of the real votes cast- not exactly a landslide or a mandate. Very much under the 10% victory he was predicting.
Hollande, and his former girlfriend, Segolène Royal were both protégée of François Mitterrand. Hollande comes out if the socialist Marxist left, and while on the moderate part if the spectrum is still an ideologue and not a natural politician.
Mitterrand, who started out on the fascist right, (he was the aide to Pétain responsible for forcing Jews to wear the yellow Star of David) was a Machiavellian- like master politician, a megalomaniac who went with whatever positions furthered his career.
When Mitterrand saw that putting his socialist agenda in power would be impossible, he moved to the center. I don’t believe that Hollande can do that. He is too beholden to the extreme far left- Communists, Trotskyites, green etc. Not going to be pretty to watch.