Early Life
Ségolène
Royal was born in the military base of Ouakam, Dakar, French West Africa (now
Senegal) on 22 September 1953, the daughter of Hélène Dehaye and Jacques Royal,
a former artillery officer and aide to the mayor of Chamagne (Vosges).
Her
parents had eight children in nine years: Marie-Odette, Marie-Nicole, Gérard,
Marie-Ségolène, Antoine, Paul, Henri and Sigisbert.
After
secondary school, Marie-Ségolène attended a local university where she
graduated 2nd in her class with a degree in Economics. Her eldest sister then
suggested she prepare the entrance exam to the elite Institut d'Études
Politiques de Paris popularly called Sciences Po, which she attended on
scholarship. There she discovered politics of class and feminism.
("Sciences Po" at the time was 85% upper-class Parisian, mostly
male.) In summer 1971, she was an au pair in Dublin, Ireland. In 1972, at the
age of 19, Royal sued her father because he refused to divorce her mother and
pay alimony and child support to finance the children's education. She won the
case after many years in court, shortly before Jacques Royal died of lung
cancer in 1981. Six of the eight children had refused to see him again,
Ségolène included.
Royal,
like most of France's political elite, is a graduate of the École Nationale
d'Administration (ENA). She was in the same class as her former partner of 30
years, François Hollande (whom she met at a party), as well as Dominique de
Villepin (prime minister under Jacques Chirac). Each class year at the ENA
receives a nickname to distinguish it: Royal tried to get her peers to name
their class after Louise Michel, a revolutionary from the 1870s, but they chose
the name "Voltaire" instead. During her time at the ENA, Royal also
dropped "Marie" from her hyphenated first name because she thought it
had been chosen by her father for his daughters out of a degrading and archaic
view of the role of women.
Personal Life
From
the late 1970s, Ségolène Royal was the private-life partner of François
Hollande, former head of the French Socialist Party, whom she met at ENA. The
couple had four children: law student Thomas (b. 1984), Clémence (b. 1985),
Julien (b. 1987) and Flora (b. 1993). They were neither married (considering it
too "bourgeois") nor bounded by a PACS (pacte civil de solidarité,
which provides for a civil union between two adults, regardless of gender),
contrary to the rumors. A news agency leaked news of their separation in June
2007, on the evening of the legislative election. According to the Guardian,
she had asked Hollande "to move out of the house" and pursue his new
love interest "which has been detailed in books and newspapers" – a
reference to a much-discussed chapter by journalists explaining how Hollande
was having a long-term affair with a journalist.
Royal's
eldest son, Thomas Hollande, served as an adviser to her during her
presidential candidacy, working on a website designed to appeal to young
voters.
Her
brother Antoine named their brother Gérard Royal as the agent who placed the
bomb that sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior. But other sources claim
that this statement is exaggerated and that Gérard was part of the logistics
team.
Royal's
cousin Anne-Christine Royal followed the paternal side of the family and has
been a candidate of the far-right Front National party at a local election in
Bordeaux.
From : www.wikipedia.org
