Cahors
Valentré bridge
Cahors
Administration
Country	France
Region	Midi-Pyrénées
Department	Lot
Arrondissement	Cahors
Canton	Cahors
Mayor	Jean-Marc Vayssouze-Faure
Statistics
Elevation	130 m (430 ft) avg.
Land area1	64.72 km2 (24.99 sq mi)
Population2	23,003  (1999)
- Density	355 /km2 (920 /sq mi)
INSEE/Postal code	46042/ 4675493
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Coordinates: 44°26′54″N 1°26′29″E / 44.4483°N 1.4414°E / 44.4483; 1.4414

Cahors (French pronunciation: [kaɔʁ]; Occitan: Caors [kaˈurs, ˈkɔws, ˈkɔw]) is the capital of the Lot department in south-western France.

Its site is dramatic being contained on three sides within an udder shaped twist in the river Lot known as a 'presqu'île' or peninsula. Today it is perhaps best known as the centre of the famous AOC 'black' wine known since the Middle Ages and exported via Bordeaux, long before that region had developed its own viticulture industry.

History[link]

Hôtel de Roaldès

Cahors has had a rich history since Celtic times. The original name of the town was Divona or Divona Cadurcorum, "Divona of the Cadurci," a Celtic people of Gaul before the Roman conquest in the 50s BC. Cahors derives from Cadurcorum.^[1] It has declined economically since the Middle Ages, and lost its university in the eighteenth century. Today it is a popular tourist centre with people coming to enjoy its mediaeval quarter and the unique 14th century fortified Valentré bridge. It is the seat of the Diocese of Cahors.

Cahors was prominent in the Middle Ages and saw considerable conflict during the Hundred Years War and the later Wars of Religion. It was also infamous at that time for having bankers that charged interest on their loans. The church in these times said that using money as an end in itself (usury) was a sin. Because of this Cahors became synonymous with this sin, and was mentioned in Dante's Inferno (XI.50) alongside Sodom as wicked.

Pope John XXII, born Jacques Duèze or d'Euse, was born in Cahors in 1249, the son of a shoemaker, and it was the home of Dutch poet Ankie Peypers (1928–2008), winner of the 1962 Anne Frank-award. In the 2007 Tour de France, Cahors was the start of stage 18.

Main sights[link]

• The Valentré Bridge, the symbol of the town. Building began in 1308 and was completed in 1378. The legend associated with this bridge is one of the most fully realized of all Devil's Bridge legends, with a carefully developed plot, complex characters, and a surprising dénouement. When the bridge was restored in 1879, the architect Paul Gout made reference to this by placing a small sculpture of the devil at the summit of one of the towers.
• Cathédrale Saint-Étienne, a national monument.
• Saint-Barthélémy Church, dating from the fourteenth century [1][2].
• Maison Henri IV or Hôtel de Roaldès (fifteenth century).
• Daurade quarter with:
  • Maison Hérétié (14th–16th centuries)
  • Maison Dolive (17th century)
  • Maison du Bourreau (13th century)
• The barbican that once defended the Barre Gate.
• Tour des pendus.
• Palais Duèze.
• Tower of Pope John XXII.
• Collège Pélegry.
• Cloister
• Arc de Diane, a relic of ancient Roman baths.
• Roman Amphitheatre – remains of an oval amphitheatre were revealed when the underground carpark was excavated at the Place Gambetta, just west of, and partially beneath, Boulevard Gambetta in the city centre. The stone walls can be seen in the car park first level, below the statue of Leon Gambetta, and opened to the public in April 2009.

Wine[link]

A Cahors chateau and vineyard

The area around Cahors produces wine, primarily robust and tannic red wine. Wine from the Cahors appellation must be made from at least 70% Cot (also called Malbec, Mabeck, Auxerrois and Pressac) grape, with a maximum of 30% Merlot or Tannat grape varieties.

See also[link]

• Communes of the Lot department

References[link]

• INSEE commune file

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Cahors

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Cahors.

• Official website (French)
• Cahors Cathedral at Structurae

v t e Communes of the Lot department Albas Albiac Alvignac Anglars Anglars-Juillac Anglars-Nozac Arcambal Les Arques Assier Aujols Autoire Aynac Bach Bagat-en-Quercy Bagnac-sur-Célé Baladou Bannes Le Bastit Beaumat Beauregard Béduer Bélaye Belfort-du-Quercy Belmont-Bretenoux Belmontet Belmont-Sainte-Foi Berganty Bessonies Bétaille Biars-sur-Cère Bio Blars Boissières Le Boulvé Le Bourg Boussac Le Bouyssou Bouziès Brengues Bretenoux Cabrerets Cadrieu Cahors Cahus Caillac Cajarc Calamane Calès Calviac Calvignac Cambayrac Cambes Camboulit Camburat Caniac-du-Causse Capdenac Carayac Cardaillac Carennac Carlucet Carnac-Rouffiac Cassagnes Castelfranc Castelnau-Montratier Catus Cavagnac Cazals Cazillac Cénevières Cézac Cieurac Comiac Concorès Concots Condat Corn Cornac Cours Couzou Cras Crayssac Crégols Cremps Cressensac Creysse Cuzac Cuzance Dégagnac Douelle Duravel Durbans Escamps Esclauzels Espagnac-Sainte-Eulalie Espédaillac Espère Espeyroux Estal Fajoles Fargues Faycelles Felzins Figeac Flaugnac Flaujac-Gare Flaujac-Poujols Floirac Floressas Fons Fontanes Fontanes-du-Causse Fourmagnac Francoulès Frayssinet Frayssinet-le-Gélat Frayssinhes Frontenac Gagnac-sur-Cère Gignac Gigouzac Gindou Ginouillac Gintrac Girac Glanes Gorses Goujounac Gourdon Gramat Gréalou Grézels Grèzes Issendolus Issepts Les Junies Labastide-du-Haut-Mont Labastide-du-Vert Labastide-Marnhac Labastide-Murat Labathude Laburgade Lacam-d'Ourcet Lacapelle-Cabanac Lacapelle-Marival Lacave Lachapelle-Auzac Ladirat Lagardelle Lalbenque Lamagdelaine Lamativie Lamothe-Cassel Lamothe-Fénelon Lanzac Laramière Larnagol Laroque-des-Arcs Larroque-Toirac Lascabanes Latouille-Lentillac Latronquière Lauresses Lauzès Laval-de-Cère Lavercantière Lavergne Lebreil Lentillac-du-Causse Lentillac-Saint-Blaise Léobard Leyme Lherm Lhospitalet Limogne-en-Quercy Linac Lissac-et-Mouret Livernon Loubressac Loupiac Lugagnac Lunan Lunegarde Luzech Marcilhac-sur-Célé Marminiac Martel Masclat Mauroux Maxou Mayrac Mayrinhac-Lentour Mechmont Mercuès Meyronne Miers Milhac Molières Montamel Le Montat Montbrun Montcabrier Montcléra Montcuq Montdoumerc Montet-et-Bouxal Montfaucon Montgesty Montlauzun Montredon Montvalent Nadaillac-de-Rouge Nadillac Nuzéjouls Orniac Padirac Parnac Payrac Payrignac Pern Pescadoires Peyrilles Pinsac Planioles Pomarède Pontcirq Pradines Prayssac Prendeignes Promilhanes Prudhomat Puy-l'Évêque Puybrun Puyjourdes Les Quatre-Routes-du-Lot Quissac Rampoux Reilhac Reilhaguet Reyrevignes Rignac Le Roc Rocamadour Rouffilhac Rudelle Rueyres Sabadel-Latronquière Sabadel-Lauzès Saignes Saillac Saint-Bressou Saint-Caprais Saint-Céré Saint-Cernin Saint-Chamarand Saint-Chels Saint-Cirgues Saint-Cirq-Lapopie Saint-Cirq-Madelon Saint-Cirq-Souillaguet Saint-Clair Saint-Cyprien Saint-Daunès Saint-Denis-Catus Saint-Denis-lès-Martel Sainte-Alauzie Sainte-Colombe Sainte-Croix Saint-Félix Saint-Germain-du-Bel-Air Saint-Géry Saint-Hilaire Saint-Jean-de-Laur Saint-Jean-Lagineste Saint-Jean-Lespinasse Saint-Jean-Mirabel Saint-Laurent-les-Tours Saint-Laurent-Lolmie Saint-Martin-de-Vers Saint-Martin-Labouval Saint-Martin-le-Redon Saint-Matré Saint-Maurice-en-Quercy Saint-Médard Saint-Médard-de-Presque Saint-Médard-Nicourby Saint-Michel-de-Bannières Saint-Michel-Loubéjou Saint-Pantaléon Saint-Paul-de-Loubressac Saint-Paul-de-Vern Saint-Perdoux Saint-Pierre-Lafeuille Saint-Pierre-Toirac Saint-Projet Saint-Sauveur-la-Vallée Saint-Simon Saint-Sozy Saint-Sulpice Saint-Vincent-du-Pendit Saint-Vincent-Rive-d'Olt Salviac Sarrazac Sauliac-sur-Célé Saux Sauzet Sénaillac-Latronquière Sénaillac-Lauzès Séniergues Sérignac Sonac Soturac Soucirac Souillac Soulomès Sousceyrac Strenquels Tauriac Terrou Teyssieu Thédirac Thégra Thémines Théminettes Tour-de-Faure Touzac Trespoux-Rassiels Ussel Uzech Vaillac Valprionde Valroufié Varaire Vaylats Vayrac Vers Viazac Vidaillac Le Vigan Villesèque Vire-sur-Lot

François Hollande
Hollande in Nantes (2012)
24th President of France
Incumbent
Assumed office 15 May 2012
Prime Minister	Jean-Marc Ayrault
Preceded by	Nicolas Sarkozy
Co-Prince of Andorra
Incumbent
Assumed office 15 May 2012 Serving with Joan Enric Vives Sicília
Prime Minister	Antoni Martí
Representative	Christian Frémont
Preceded by	Nicolas Sarkozy
President of the General Council of Corrèze
In office 20 March 2008 – 15 May 2012
Preceded by	Jean-Pierre Dupont
Succeeded by	Gérard Bonnet (Acting)
First Secretary of the Socialist Party
In office 27 November 1997 – 27 November 2008
Preceded by	Lionel Jospin
Succeeded by	Martine Aubry
Mayor of Tulle
In office 17 March 2001 – 17 March 2008
Preceded by	Raymond-Max Aubert
Succeeded by	Bernard Combes
Deputy of the National Assembly for Corrèze's 1st Constituency
In office 12 June 1997 – 15 May 2012
Preceded by	Raymond-Max Aubert
Succeeded by	TBD
In office 12 June 1988 – 16 May 1993
Preceded by	Proportional representation
Succeeded by	Raymond-Max Aubert
Personal details
Born	François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (1954-08-12) 12 August 1954 (age 57) Rouen, France
Political party	Socialist Party
Domestic partner	Ségolène Royal (1978–2007) Valérie Trierweiler (2005–present)
Children	Thomas Clémence Julien Flora
Alma mater	School of High Commercial Studies, Paris Institute of Political Studies, Paris National School of Administration, Strasbourg
Signature

Styles of François Hollande
Reference style	Son Excellence (Monsieur)
Spoken style	Monsieur le Président

Styles of François Hollande
Reference style	His Serene Highness
Spoken style	Your Serene Highness

François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa ɔlɑ̃d]; born 12 August 1954) is the 24th President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He previously served as the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party from 1997 to 2008 and as a Deputy of the National Assembly of France for Corrèze's 1st Constituency from 1988 to 1993 and then again from 1997 to 2012. He also served as the Mayor of Tulle from 2001 to 2008 and the President of the General Council of Corrèze from 2008 to 2012.

He was elected President of France on 6 May 2012, defeating the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, and was inaugurated on 15 May.^[1] He is the second Socialist President of the Fifth French Republic, after François Mitterrand who served from 1981 to 1995.

Early life and background[link]

Hollande was born in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Upper Normandy, to a middle-class family. His mother, Nicole Frédérique Marguerite Tribert (1927–2009), was a social worker, and his father, Georges Gustave Hollande, an ear, nose, and throat doctor who "had once run for the extreme right in local politics."^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The surname "Hollande" is "believed to come from Calvinist ancestors who escaped Holland (the Netherlands) in the 16th century and took the name of their old country."^[7] Hollande was raised Catholic but quietly rebelled against the strict religious brothers chosen by his father to educate him.^[7] The family moved to Neuilly, a suburb of Paris, when Hollande was 13.^[8]

Education[link]

He attended Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle boarding school, then HEC Paris, École nationale d'administration, and the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Paris Institute of Political Studies). He graduated from ENA in 1980.^[9][10] He lived in the United States in the summer of 1974 while he was a university student.^[11] Immediately after graduating, he was employed as a councillor in the Court of Audit.

Early political career[link]

After volunteering as a student to work for François Mitterrand's ultimately unsuccessful campaign in the 1974 presidential election, Hollande joined the Socialist Party five years later. He was quickly spotted by Jacques Attali, a senior adviser to Mitterrand, who arranged for Hollande to stand for election to the French National Assembly in 1981 in Corrèze against future President Jacques Chirac, who was then the Leader of the Rally for the Republic, a Neo-Gaullist party. Hollande lost to Chirac in the first round, although he would go on to become a Special Adviser to the newly-elected President Mitterrand, before serving as a staffer for Max Gallo, the government's spokesman. After becoming a Municipal Councillor for Ussel in 1983, he contested Corrèze for a second time in 1988, this time being elected to the National Assembly. Hollande lost his bid for re-election to the National Assembly in the so-called "blue wave" of the 1993 election, described as such due to the number of seats gained by the Right at the expense of the Socialist Party.

First Secretary of the Socialist Party[link]

As the end of Mitterrand's term in office approached, the Socialist Party was torn by a struggle of internal factions, each seeking to influence the direction of the party. Hollande pleaded for reconciliation and for the party to unite behind Jacques Delors, the President of the European Commission, but Delors renounced his ambitions to run for the French Presidency in 1995, leading to Lionel Jospin's resuming his earlier position as the leader of the party. Jospin selected Hollande to become the official party spokesman, and Hollande went on to contest Corrèze once again in 1997, successfully returning to the National Assembly. That same year, Jospin became the Prime Minister of France, and Hollande won the election for his successor as First Secretary of the French Socialist Party, a position he would hold for eleven years. Because of the very strong position of the Socialist Party within the French Government during this period, Hollande's position led some to refer to him the "Vice Prime Minister". Hollande would go on to be elected the Mayor of Tulle in 2001, an office he would hold for the next seven years.

The immediate resignation of Jospin from politics following his shock defeat by far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of the 2002 presidential election forced Hollande to become the public face of the party for the 2002 legislative election but, although he managed to limit defeats and was re-elected in his own constituency, the Socialists lost nationally. In order to prepare for the 2003 Party Congress in Dijon, he obtained the support of many notable personalities of the party and was re-elected First Secretary against opposition from left-wing factions. After the triumph of the Left in the 2004 regional elections, Hollande was cited as a potential presidential candidate, but the Socialists were divided on the European Constitution, and Hollande's support for the ill-fated "yes" position in the French referendum on the European Constitution caused friction within the party. Although Hollande was re-elected as First Secretary at the Le Mans Congress in 2005, his authority over the party began to decline from this point onwards. Eventually his domestic partner, Ségolène Royal, was chosen to represent the Socialist Party in the 2007 presidential election, where she would lose to Nicolas Sarkozy. Hollande was widely blamed for the poor performances of the Socialist Party in the 2007 elections, and he announced that he would not seek another term as First Secretary. Hollande publicly declared his support for Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, although it was Martine Aubry who would go on to win the race to succeed him in 2008.

Following his resignation as First Secretary, Hollande was immediately elected to replace Jean-Pierre Dupont as the President of the General Council of Corrèze in April 2008, a position he holds to this day. In 2008 he supported the creation of the first European Prize for Local History (Étienne Baluze Prize), founded by the "Société des Amis du musée du cloître" of Tulle, on the suggestion of the French historian Jean Boutier. François Hollande awarded the first prize on 29 February 2008 to the Italian historian Beatrice Palmero in the General Council of Corrèze.

2012 presidential campaign[link]

See also: French presidential election, 2012

Following his re-election as President of the General Council of Corrèze in March 2011, Hollande announced that he would be a candidate in the upcoming primary election to select the Socialist and Radical Left Party presidential nominee.^[12] The primary marked the first time that both parties had held an open primary to select a joint nominee at the same time. He initially trailed the front-runner, former Finance Minister and IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Following Strauss-Kahn's arrest on suspicion of sexual assault in New York City in May 2011, Hollande began to lead the opinion polls. His position as front-runner was established just as Strauss-Kahn declared that he would no longer be seeking the nomination. After a series of televised debates throughout September, Hollande topped the ballot in the first round held on 9 October with 39% of the vote, not gaining the 50% required to avoid a second ballot, which he would contest against Martine Aubry, who had come second with 30% of the vote.

The second ballot took place on 16 October 2011. Hollande won with 56% of the vote to Aubry's 43% and thus became the official Socialist and Radical Left Party candidate for the 2012 presidential election.^[13] After the primary results, he immediately gained the pledged support of the other contenders for the party's nomination, including Aubry, Arnaud Montebourg, Manuel Valls and 2007 candidate Ségolène Royal.^[14]

Hollande's presidential campaign was managed by Pierre Moscovici and Stéphane Le Foll, a Member of Parliament and Member of the European Parliament respectively.^[15] Hollande launched his campaign officially with a rally and major speech at Le Bourget on 22 January 2012 in front of 25,000 people.^[16][17] The main themes of his speech were equality and the regulation of finance, both of which he promised to make a key part of his campaign.^[17]

On 26 January he outlined a full list of policies in a manifesto containing 60 propositions, including the separation of retail activities from riskier investment-banking businesses; raising taxes for big corporations, banks and the wealthy; creating 60,000 teaching jobs; bringing the official retirement age back down to 60 from 62; creating subsidised jobs in areas of high unemployment for the young; promoting more industry in France by creating a public investment bank; granting marriage and adoption rights to same-sex couples; and pulling French troops out of Afghanistan in 2012.^[18][19] On 9 February, he detailed his policies specifically relating to education in a major speech in Orléans.^[20]