John Gaffney is Professor of Politics at Aston University, Birmingham, UK

Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations PART I: UNDERSTANDING THE FRENCH PRESIDENCY 1. Revealing the Republic 2. Scandals, Trivia, and 'Opinion' PART II: THE NORMAL PRESIDENT v. THE HYPER-PRESIDENT: SELF-DEFINITION AS ANTITHESIS 3. The New President 4. The Accidental Candidate 5. Presidential Character PART III: FROM THE GAULLIST SETTLEMENT TO CELEBRITY POLITICS 6. The Settlement 7. Path Dependence and the Evolution of the Fifth Republic 8. Personal Leadership and the Republic 9. Leadership, Institutions, and Culture 10. The Conditions and Characteristics of Fifth Republic Leadership 11. Character Traits PART IV: THE FIRST YEAR. THE NORMAL PRESIDENT AND TIME 12. International President Normal: The First Clues 13. 'Normalism' and Presidentialism 14. A Normal President's Constituency 15. Normal as Moral 16. Valériegate and the Presidency 17. Changing the Tempo; Scrambling the Signifiers 18. The Cahuzac Scandal 19. Gay Marriage and La France Profonde PART V: THE SECOND YEAR. PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER UNDER SIEGE 20. France and Syria: Hollande v. Assad 21. Closergate 22. The Municipal Elections and the Valls Government 23. The European Elections and the Victory of the Front National 24. The Summer of 2014 25. The Right 26. Endgame? PART VI: CONCLUSION: CHARACTER AND PERFORMANCE IN FRENCH PRESIDENTIALISM 27. 'France' and 'the French' 28. Action, Fortune, and Politics as Saga 29. François Hollande and Presidential Character Traits 30. A Path-Dependent Tree of Traits 31. Celebrity and Privacy 32. The Self and Embodiment 33. The Normal, the Chivalric, and the Sixth Republic 34. Mitterrand and French Socialism 35. François Hollande, Time, and Performance 36. The International and the Domestic in Hollande's Presidency 37. The Presidency and Character Bibliography Index

An analysis of the first half of François Hollande's five-year presidential term that examines the strengths and weaknesses of presidential politics following the Left's return to power in 2012 and puts forward an interpretation of the underlying nature of contemporary French politics, and the French Fifth Republic.