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Former French president François Hollande said on Wednesday he has not turned his back on politics, after criticizing his successor and former protégé in the Élysée Palace, Emmanuel Macron. “Even when I decided… not to stand (for re-election), I had said I would not retire from political life,” the Socialist Hollande, 63, told TV5 Monde television. The former president on Tuesday said the 39-year-old Macron should not “demand needless sacrifices from the French”. Macron, elected in May, has come under fire for budget and public spending cuts. …

Leaders of France, Germany, Spain and Italy have called for a European Union which allows groups of member states to advance at their own pace, in a joint effort to cushion the impact of the Brexit. French president François Hollande hosted his counterparts on Monday evening in Versailles, near Paris, to prepare for a larger EU meeting later this week. “Europe must be able to draw the consequences of the Brexit,” he said in a joint statement with the other leaders of the European Union’s major economies. […] Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni joined...

One day after president Trump remarked in a speech at a conference that a friend thought "Paris is no longer Paris" after attacks by Islamist militants, French President Francois Hollande fired back at Donald Trump on Saturday. During a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, Trump repeated his criticism of Europe's handling of attacks by Islamist militants saying a friend "Jim" no longer wanted to take his family to Paris. Hollande said Trump should show support for U.S. allies. "There is terrorism and we must fight it together. I think that it is never good to show...

French President François Hollande on Saturday urged Europe to present a united front against populist movements which, he said, are being encouraged by political developments in the United States. “Europe is facing a moment of truth,” Hollande said. “The issue is populism. What we are hearing from the U.S. encourages populism and even extremism. They are saying that Europe should not take immigrants, shouldn’t stay together, not believe in climate change.” European Union countries should stick to their principles and defend their interests — and stand firm in talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, Hollande said. “Europe should be true...

DONALD Trump will hold telephone calls with Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and François Holland this weekend, the White House said. Sean Spicer, the White House's spokesman, tweeted the President would call the leaders of Russia, Germany and France on Saturday. The Kremlin earlier said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump would speak. Separately, a source in Berlin said Chancellor Angela Merkel would talk with Trump, although the German Chancellor's spokeswoman declined to comment.

PARIS — President François Hollande stunned France on Thursday when he announced that he would not run for a second term in next year’s presidential election. In a televised address from the Élysée Palace, Mr. Hollande said that he was “aware of the risks” of a candidacy that would not “rally” enough people to it. “I have thus decided not to be a candidate in the presidential elections,” Mr. Hollande said. Mr. Hollande, a Socialist, ended weeks of speculation about his intentions to participate in a re-election bid that few observers thought he could win. He has had some of...

French President François Hollande on Saturday called for the embargo that “punishes” Cuba to be “lifted definitively” following the death of Fidel Castro. […] “Even if I have repeatedly denounced human rights abuses in Cuba, I have always believed that the embargo was an unacceptable, unilateral decision,” he said. “Fidel Castro was a great figure of the 20th century. He aroused much hope with the Cuban revolution. There have also been disappointments.” …

French President François Hollande says the Paris deal to fight climate change is “irreversible” and says the United States must respect the decision by the Obama administration to join the deal. […] Trump has called global warming a “hoax” and pledged during his campaign to “cancel” the landmark Paris climate agreement. …

President François Hollande, who has criticized Donald Trump in the past, said on Tuesday that US presidential vote was in capable hands. On the eve of the US election, President Hollande made it clear that he is confident that Americans will make the right choice. “I have faith in the American people to know which choice corresponds the best to the values, the principles, the liberty, and to Americans’ relation with France, and with Europe,” he told reporters while in La Rochelle in western France. …

French President François Hollande on Saturday urged Britain to take in 1,500 unaccompanied minors from Calais’ “Jungle” as officials stepped up efforts to finish demolishing the almost-deserted migrant camp. Hailing the evacuation of the sprawling encampment, Hollande vowed that France would not accept the emergence of any more makeshift camps, which have become a glaring symbol of Europe’s worst migration crisis since World War II. […] In Paris, more than 100 left-wing lawmakers sent a letter to British Home Secretary Amber Rudd, calling on her government to “immediately” take in unaccompanied minors from the Jungle who want to rejoin relatives...

French police staged protests in Paris and other cities for a third night, with political opponents seizing on the unease to accuse Francois Hollande's government of failing on security just months before a presidential election. Police say they are no longer sufficiently equipped even to defend themselves and have staged three nights of unauthorised demonstrations.

French President Francois Hollande has suggested the rise of ISIS can be attributed to Barack Obama not backing his calls for Syrian air strikes back in 2013. Since then, France has been victim to a string of savage Islamic State terror attacks and the President insisted too many migrants were being let into the country. 'I don't know what would have happened if we had carried out strikes. What I can say is that we did not carry out strikes, and there's Daesh,' he said, referring to ISIS by its Arabic acronym. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3851500/Francois-Hollande-suggests-rise-ISIS-Barack-Obama-s-fault-migrants-allowed-France.html#ixzz4NeMmIr7L Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter...

A new book titled “A President Should Not Say That…” has revealed that François Hollande calls Nicolas Sarkozy “a Duracell bunny”, how his ex-partner was obsessed by another ex-partner, and how he believes a Muslim woman could one day be the symbol of France (if she feels free enough to ditch her veil). The new book was penned by journalists Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme who met with the president 61 times since he has been president. They recorded their private conversations with him in which the president made several headline-making statements. Firstly the one that has caused the most...

PARIS (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande said on Thursday that it was crucial an upcoming European Union summit, the first since Britain voted to leave the bloc, addressed the EU's weaknesses with a plan for reforms. Britain's Brexit vote sent shockwaves through the European Unions long deemed by many voters to be overly bureaucratic and unresponsive to their concerns, while energizing the continent's anti-immigration, eurosceptic parties. "It is now about applying an agenda for Bratislava that makes clear we are determined to react together to the weaknesses, to the tasks we face," Merkel told...

With next year’s presidential elections looming large, the French government will make a raft of tax cuts for households and businesses. France’s government unveiled Friday plans to lower taxes on households and companies, as the ruling Socialists lined up their budget for the 2017 election year. The gesture to households would “take the form of a reduction in income taxes by 20 percent for the middle class,” Finance Minister Michel Sapin told AFP. Around 5 million households would benefit from the €1 billion ($1.1 billion) reduction in income taxes, worth about €200 per family. …

French President François Hollande is hinting that he could seek a second term in elections next year, even though he is the least popular French leader in modern times. The Socialist Hollande gave a sweeping speech Thursday laying out his vision of democracy and repeatedly suggesting that he is eyeing a re-election bid. “I will not let the image of France be spoiled … in the coming months or the coming years,” he said. […] “I will not let Europe collapse or dissolve; I will not let it be seized by nationalism, borders, extremism,” he said, a reference to recent...

The leaders of Germany, France and Italy will meet on Monday to discuss how to keep the European project together in the second set of talks between the premiers of the eurozone’s three largest economies since Britain’s shock vote to leave the bloc. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi hosts German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on an island off the coast of Naples ahead of September’s EU summit called to discuss reverberations from the Brexit vote. “They will be coming to discuss how to relaunch Europe from the bottom up; there’s a big need,” Renzi said on...

French President François Hollande says he may run in next year’s elections provided he sees a chance of winning, but would quit politics if he lost, according to a book published on Friday. Quoted by journalists Antonin Andre and Karim Rissouli in “Conversations Privées avec le Président” (Private Conversations with the President), Hollande highlighted the strain of politics, the burden of high office and the passing of time. “I know what it’s like… to spend years without a personal life,” he said. “But I do have the desire” to stand for re-election, he said. “That is my personal inclination.” …

Marion Le Pen simply wrote “France, 2016 #SainteRita” alongside the image of the priest who refused to leave the mass he was holding in protest against the demolition of local church Sainte Rita. The angry protests come just a day after Father Jacques Hamel, who had his throat slit by two depraved Islamic State fighters, was laid to rest in Rouen Cathedral on Tuesday.

The Republican presidential candidate tweeted This story is not about Mr. Khan, who is all over the place doing interviews, but rather RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM and the U.S. Get smart! : He also suggested Khizr Khan's wife, Ghazala, had not been allowed to talk when the couple appeared at the Democratic National Convention. Mr Hollande criticised Mr Trump's "hurtful and humiliating comments". "Democracy is also at stake, as we see more and more people tempted by authoritarianism," he said, "especially" in the United States. "Should the American people choose Trump, there will be consequences, because a US election is a...