Segolene Royal
Ségolène Royal (right) at a 6 February 2007 meeting with Dominique Strauss-Kahn (left) and Bertrand Delanoë (centre) Royal with Réunionese politician Paul Vergès in 2006 Marie-Ségolène Royal (pronounced: [se.ɡɔ.lɛn ʁwa.jal] ( listen); born 22 September 1953), known as Ségolène Royal, is a French politician. A prominent member of the French Socialist Party, she is currently the Minister for Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy in the Valls Cabinet, and the president of the Poitou-Charentes Regional Council. She is a former member of the National Assembly and has held several ministerial positions. The first woman in France to be nominated by a major party, she was the Socialist candidate in the 2007 French presidential election but lost to Nicolas Sarkozy on 6 May 2007. 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. On 30 November 2010, Royal announced her intentions to again seek the PS nomination for President in 2012 but she lost the Socialist Party presidential primary in 2011. She failed in her attempt to win a seat in the National Assembly in the June 2012 parliamentary elections. François Hollande, the current President of France, is the father of her four children. She was appointed by him to the vice-Chair directorship of the Banque Publique d'Investissement, from which position she stated that the "BPI's purpose is not to do business nor to make profits".