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| Francois Hollande to step aside from French elections to help stop extremism winning | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| French president Francois Hollande has announced that he will not seek re-election in 2017. | |
| Mr Hollande said he had decided against running for another term because he wants to give his Socialist party a chance to win "against conservatism and extremism." | |
| His presidency has been dogged by low public satisfaction ratings - with recent polls showing satisfaction ratings fall to just four per cent - and in a live television address Mr Hollande said he was aware of the "risks" this would bring for the French left. | |
| Mr Hollande becomes the first French president not to run for re-election since the Second World War. | |
| His decision not to seek re-election means the Socialist Party will now go forward under a new candidate, five years after Mr Hollande ended the centre-right's 17-year stranglehold on the French presidency. | |
| The Socialist Party will select its candidate for the Elysee Palace in primaries in January. The president was recently polling at around nine per cent in the first round of the presidential race, behind both his former economy minister Emmanuel Macron and the hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon. Both Mr Macron and Mr Melenchon have said they will run in the presidential election but without taking part in the primaries. | |
| “I have decided not to be a candidate to the renewal of my mandate,” said Mr Hollande, who will hand over to his successor in May. | |
| “In the months to come my sole duty will be to continue to lead the state, the mandate for which you elected me in 2012.” | |
| There has been tension between Mr Hollande and his prime minister Manuel Valls, who raised the possibility in a weekend interview that he might run in the primaries against Mr Hollande. | |
| Mr Hollande beat conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in an election in May 2012 after a classic leftwing campaign in which he targeted big business and pledged to raise taxes for high earners. | |
| But his popularity soon began to decline with a perceived lack of leadership and flip-flops on key issues, particularly tax reform, which dismayed many on the left. His popularity has been undermined by stubbornly high unemployment and anaemic economic growth. | |
| Grassroots supporters were further alienated by a pro-business switch in 2014, a wavering over security reforms, and by labour laws that brought thousands out onto the streets in protests early this year. | |
| Mr Hollande's image was also hit by a series of communication mis-steps, including a very public split with his ex-partner Valerie Trierweiler and pictures of him going to visit his new partner on a scooter. | |
| In a series of tweets following his decision to step aside, Mr Hollande listed his achievements as president, including working to boost employment rates and improve equality between the sexes. | |
| “I only have one regret, and that's to have proposed a policy allowing the government to strip citizens of their nationality. I thought it would unite us, but it has divided us”. | |
| “As President of the Republic I have a duty to lead the state. As a socialist, I cannot resign myself to the dissolution of the left,” he said. | |
| François Fillon - the centre-right candidate for the presidency - did not wait long to take aim at the man he hopes to succeed in May. | |
| He tweeted: "This evening, the President of the Republic admits with lucidity, that his patent failure prevents him from going on further. | |
| "This five-year term is ending in a political mess and the dissolving of power." |