The first round of voting in the presidential election was held on April 22, 2012, in which Mr. François Hollande, the candidate for the Socialist Party, took a lead over Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, the incumbent president and candidate for the Union for a Popular Movement.
During the election campaign, Mr. Hollande promised to renegotiate the terms of the EU Fiscal Compact, which was signed by 25 of the 27 EU member countries in March 2012.3 Like Mr. Sarkozy, he is also committed to meeting the 3-percent fiscal deficit target in 2013 and subsequently balancing the budget by 2017.