Now it's clear it was all lies and PR, and his real interest is in abetting the Tory agenda to the maximum possible extent.

This has been a consistent pattern by 'left' leaders since at least the mid 90s.

Hollande is already something of a Third Way-ist. So excuse my cynicism if I don't expect great things of him. (Although I'll be delighted if I'm proved wrong.)

Hollande does not manage to get an explicit support from the European left to renegotiate the fiscal pact

According to Les Echos, Francois Hollande on Saturday managed to overcome the impression of being isolated in Europe by bringing his European counterparts like SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel and Italy's Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani others to a common electoral rally to Paris. According to Le Figaro he mocked the ,,holy alliance" that conservative Europeans leaders like Angela Merkel, David Cameron, Mario Monti and Donald Tusk had put in place by agreeing not to meet with him during the election campaign. But the announcements about a renegotiation of the fiscal pact stayed very vague and the idea of a common ,,Paris Declaration" that Hollande would have liked to publish was dropped because of a lack of agreement on what to say on the fiscal pact, the paper writes. According to Les Echos, Gabriel said he was in favour of ,,complementing the treaty with a real European initiative in favour of growth" but he said nothing that the SPD would use its influence on the vote to force Merkel's hands. According to Financial Times Deutschland, however, Gabriel wants to wait for the French presidential elections before ratifying the fiscal pact in order to be able to force her to agree to an EU growth initiative.