Won’t run again, France’s Hollande says

PARIS — French President Francois Hollande announced Thursday that he would not run for a second term in next year’s presidential election.

Speaking in a televised address from the Elysee Palace, Hollande said 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,” Hollande said.

Hollande, a socialist, ended weeks of speculations about his intentions to participate in a re-election bid that few observers thought he could win. He has had some of the worst approval ratings for a president in modern French history.

Polls so far indicated that Hollande, who has struggled to reduce unemployment and whose term saw some of the worst terrorist attacks on French soil, would not make it past the first round of the elections, which will be held in April.