NOVANEWS
By PETER ALLEN
France’s new Socialist president owns three holiday homes in the glamorous Riviera resort of Cannes, it emerged today.
The 57-year-old who ‘dislikes the rich’ and wants to revolutionise his country with high taxes and an onslaught against bankers is in fact hugely wealthy himself.
His assets were published today in the Official Journal, the gazette which contains verified information about France’s government.
Mixed messages: Socialist president Francois Hollande portrays himself as an enemy of the rich – and yet he holds assets worth almost £1million
To the undoubted embarrassment to the most left-wing leader in Europe and a man who styles himself as ‘Mr Normal’, they are valued at almost £1million.
It will also reinforce accusations that Hollande is a ‘Gauche Caviar’, or ‘Left-Wing Caviar’ – the Gallic equivalent of a Champagne Socialist.
Among other assets are three current accounts in French banks – two with global giant Societe Generale and one with the Postal Bank – and a life insurance policy.
But it is the fabulous property portfolio which is causing the greatest stir among millions of ordinary French people who voted for Holland over the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy last Sunday.
Hollande regularly attacked the ‘Bling-Bling’ presidency of Sarkozy, whose multi-millionaire lifestyle with Italian-born heiress Carla Bruni contributed to his humiliating election defeat after just one term in office.
Bling-Bling and Mr Normal: Hollande’s campaign was helped by public disapproval of the multi-millionaire lifestyle enjoyed by his rival Nicolas Sarkozy (left)
As well as the spacious Paris apartment he shares with his lover Valerie Trierweiler, Hollande owns a palatial villa in Mougins, the prestigious hill-top Cannes suburb where the artist Pablo Picasso used to live.
It is valued by the Official Journal at €800,000 (£642,000), and is just a short drive from Hollande’s two flats in the Cannes. They are each priced at €230,000 (£185,000) and €140,000 (£112,000).
Hollande has promised to cut his pay by 30 per cent after he is officially sworn in as President next week, but he will still be on €156,000 (£125,000) a year, plus fabulous expenses and other perks.
Shacking up: Hollande shares his large Paris apartment with partner Valerie Trierweiler
He intends to set a top tax rate of 75 per cent, and to increase France’s controversial wealth tax – moves which have already seen wealthy people threatening to leave the country, and move abroad to places like the UK.
Meanwhile, Hollande wants to pour public money into France’s public service, creating thousands of new jobs.
He has has also threatened to block the eurozone’s new financial treaty unless Germany agrees to renegotiate its stringent austerity measures.
Hollande wants the treaty, seen as crucial to ensuring the survival of the single currency, to focus more on encouraging growth.
Benoit Hamon, spokesman for Hollande’s Socialist Party, said that the ‘politics of austerity’ was failing to improve the continent’s financial crisis.
He said the president-elect was determined to win a ‘trial of strength’ over the new fiscal pact, which aims to impose budgetary discipline on the 25 European Union countries who have signed up.
One thought on “New French president Francois Hollande, who claims to ‘dislike the rich’, has THREE homes on French Riviera”
He sounds like a hypocrite already…