Hollande PS presidency — social-democratic fiscal orthodoxy (France)

Doctrine — stated goals and content

Social-democratic Parti Socialiste presidency that campaigned on a left-redistributive platform ("Le changement, c'est maintenant"; 60 engagements including 75% top-bracket surtax on incomes above €1m, separation of retail and investment banking, 60,000 new teachers, same-sex marriage) but pivoted to fiscal orthodoxy and supply-side adjustment under Eurozone constraints from mid-2013. Left-right axis: centre-left, with a clear centrist-technocratic drift across the mandate. Signature policies: exceptional 75% tax on very high incomes 2013-2014 (struck down once, redesigned, expired 2015); same-sex marriage "Mariage pour tous" (loi Taubira, 17 May 2013); CICE tax credit for competitiveness and employment from January 2013 (tax credit on wages below 2.5 SMIC, ~€20bn/yr); Pacte de responsabilité 2014 (further employer-contribution cuts); loi Macron August 2015 (Sunday/evening retail opening, deregulation of regulated professions, intercity-bus liberalisation, Article 49.3); loi Travail (El Khomri) July 2016 (enterprise-level bargaining primacy, dismissal-economic criteria clarified, Article 49.3 again, nuit-debout protests); ANI 2013 and retraites reform 2014 (contribution-period lengthening). Popularity trajectory: 1st-round 28.6% / 2nd-round 51.6% May 2012 vs Sarkozy; PS legislative victory June 2012 (~280 seats + allies to 314); approval collapsed from ~55% at inauguration to ~20% by late 2013, hitting a record ~13-15% low in late 2016 (Ifop); Hollande declined to seek re-election December 2016, the first incumbent to do so in the Fifth Republic; PS primary produced Benoît Hamon who won 6.4% in 2017 1st round, precipitating the PS collapse. Coherence judgement: mandate content flipped mid-course from redistributive social-democracy to competitiveness-supply-side under Eurozone discipline, producing doctrinal incoherence that hollowed the PS base and prefigured the 2017 centrist realignment.