François Hollande, the newly-inaugurated President of France, may be as notable for what he has not done as for what he has. 

He has never held national elective office despite being at the center of French politics for more than a decade, and he has never been married despite a three-decade relationship and four children with Ségolène Royale, another of the country's top Socialist politicians. 

Hollande led the Socialist Party for 11 years and was leader when Royale ran unsuccessfully for president against Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. 

Hollande and Royale split up a month before that election, and he is now seeing journalist Valérie Trierweiler, who appeared, smiling with him, as he celebrated his victory Sunday. 

He immediately spooked markets, and Germany, France's key ally in the European Union, with his victory speech. 

"Austerity can no longer be something that is inevitable," he said, apparently undercutting the belt-tightening that his predecessor and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have urged on European countries beset by debt. 

Hollande emerged as his party's candidate for president after the downfall of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was once considered the Socialist favorite to defeat Sarkozy. 

But Strauss-Kahn was arrested in May 2011 after a New York hotel maid alleged that he tried to rape her. Charges against the former IMF chief were later dropped in the United States, but he has been warned he could be investigated in France over accusations he participated in a prostitution ring. 

But Hollande was not an accidental candidate despite the way he has come to power, one commentator said. 
What did he say that undercut what his predicessor and the German Chancellor whated the EU countries to do?
"Austerity can no longer be something that is inevitable,