Biography

Marie-Ségolène Royal (French: [seɡɔlɛn ʁwajal] ; born 22 September 1953) is a French politician who was the Socialist Party candidate for the Presidency of France in the 2007 election.

Royal was president of the Poitou-Charentes Regional Council from 2004 to 2014. She won the 2006 Socialist Party primary, becoming the first woman in France to be nominated as a presidential candidate by a major party. In the subsequent 2007 presidential election, she earned further distinction as the first woman to qualify for the second round of a presidential election, but ultimately lost to Nicolas Sarkozy.

In 2008, Royal narrowly lost to Martine Aubry in the Socialist Party's election for First Secretary at the Party's twenty-second national congress. She lost the Socialist Party presidential primary in 2011, and failed in an attempt to win a seat in the National Assembly in the June 2012 parliamentary elections.

She has four children with François Hollande, the former president, and was appointed by him to the vice-chair directorship of the Banque Publique d'Investissement (BPI) in 2013. She served as Minister for Ecology from 2014 to 2017, in the Valls, then Cazeneuve cabinets.