Hollande rules out 2017 run
France’s President Francois Hollande announced in a surprise televised address Thursday that he would not seek a second term in next year’s presidential election, acknowledging that his personal unpopularity might cost his Socialist party the Elysee.
“I have decided not to be a candidate in the presidential election,” Hollande said in the prime time slot, adding that he hoped by stepping aside to give the Socialists a chance to win “against conservatism and, worse still, extremism.”
The 62-year-old president – the country’s least popular leader since World War II – said he was “conscious of the risks” his lack of support posed to a successful candidacy.
“What’s at stake is not a person, it’s the country’s future,” he said.
The announcement Thursday came just a few days after Hollande’s No. 2, Prime Minister Manuel Valls, said he was “ready” to compete in next month’s Socialist primary.
In a written statement on Thursday night, Valls praised Hollande’s “tough, mature, serious choice.”
“That’s the choice of a statesman,” he said, without confirming if he plans to seek the presidency himself.
In his address Hollande avoided saying if he would support Valls – or any other candidate. Station, a U.S. research center on the Antarctic coast.
Tour company White Desert said Aldrin has fluid in his lungs, but was responding well to antibiotics. He’ll remain hospitalized overnight for observation. His manager, Christina Korp, who accompanied him, said he was in good spirits.
On Twitter, she said the past 24 hours had been grueling. She posted side-byside photos of Aldrin – one on a stretcher giving a thumbsup with a purple knit cap on his head, another in a hospital bed, on oxygen and with an IV in his left arm.
Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first men on the moon, on July 20, 1969. Armstrong died in 2012.
Just three weeks ago, Aldrin was at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the unveiling of a new astronaut exhibit. The ceremony coincided with the 50th anniversary of his launch with Jim Lovell on Gemini 12, the last of the two-man Gemini flights. Both were present and looked as energetic as usual.