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President
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Profile
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<p>Francois Hollande beat the conservative incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, in May 2012 to become France's first Socialist president since Francois Mitterrand held the post from 1981 to 1995.</p>
<p>The standard-bearer of the right wing of the party, Mr Hollande saw off the more left-wing Martine Aubry in public primaries to become his party's presidential candidate.</p>
<p>Despite his reputation as a moderate, Mr Hollande campaigned on strongly left-wing proposals, including a 75% top income tax rate, 60,000 new teachers, and the renegotiation of the European Union fiscal growth pact.</p>
<p>His Socialists went on to won a comfortable majority in the June 2012 parliamentary elections, ensuring that President Hollande would not have to count on far-left or Green votes.</p>
<p>But by the end of 2012, Mr Hollande's economic plans were in trouble, with growth stagnant and the continuing woes of the eurozone promising no relief.</p>
<p>France continued to dip in an out of recession throughout the next year, and Mr Hollande's failure to make good on his promise to reduce unemployment by the end of 2013 left him with the lowest approval rating of any president since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958.</p>
<p>His decision to opt for raising taxes rather than cutting spending - an option unpopular with his natural supporters - has come close to triggering a taxpayers' revolt.</p>
<p>Mr Hollande has also come under pressure from Brussels, with the EU Commission urging France to reduce its budget deficit and bring down public spending - the highest per capita in Europe.</p>
<p>His private life also threatened potential embarrassment after claims of an affair with actress Julie Gayet prompted media questions about his partner Valerie Trierweiler's status as first lady.</p>
<p>On the international stage, Mr Hollande has taken a strong lead in pushing for a more interventionist approach towards shoring up states threatened with destabilisation. </p>
<p>In January 2013, he sent troops to Mali to help government regain control over the north of the country from Islamist militants, and in December he deployed additional peacekeepers to the Central African Republic to help restore order after a rebel takeover.</p>
<p>Born in 1954 in Rouen, Normandy, and a product of the "grandes ecoles" elite education system, Mr Hollande was an economic advisor to President Mitterrand, and became an MP in 1988.</p>
<p>He rose to lead the party in the long years of opposition in 1997-2008, and stood down over a party row about the failed presidential campaign of his long-standing partner, Segolene Royal.</p>
<p>Mr Hollande and Ms Royal later split up over his affair with journalist Valerie Trierweiler, now his partner.</p>
<p>He emerged as the Socialist candidate after the favourite, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, saw his political career collapse in 2011 amid allegations of sexual misconduct.</p>
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<p>Abdullah Gul was chosen as president by parliament in August 2007, after months of controversy over his nomination. He is Turkey's first head of state with a background in political Islam in a country with strong secularist principles.</p>
<p>The months leading to his eventual election saw street demonstrations, an opposition boycott of parliament, early parliamentary elections and warnings from the army, which has ousted four governments since 1960.</p>
<p>Turkish secularists, including army generals, opposed Mr Gul's nomination, fearing he would try to undermine Turkey's strict separation of state and religion. Secularists also did not want Turkey's First Lady to wear the Muslim headscarf.</p>
<p>The army top brass and the main opposition Republican People's Party, stayed away from Mr Gul's swearing-in ceremony.</p>
<p>Mr Gul started in politics in an Islamist party that was banned by the courts, but later renounced the idea that Islam should be a driving force in politics. In 2001, along with other moderate members of the Islamist movement, he founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and distanced himself from his past political leanings.</p>
<p>The party won elections in 2002 and Mr Gul served as stand-in prime minister before stepping aside for Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mr Gul served as foreign minister under Mr Erdogan and cultivated an image as a moderate politician, acting as an impassioned voice for reforms to promote Turkey's EU bid.</p>
<p>The government holds most power but the president can veto laws, appoint officials, and name judges. Voters in a referendum in October 2007 backed plans to have future presidents elected by the people instead of by parliament.</p>
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Prime minister
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Profile
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<p>Jean-Marc Ayrault, a long-standing ally of President Hollande, is a veteran leader of the Socialists' parliamentary bloc and mayor of Nantes. The premiership is his first senior government post. </p>
<p>He has a reputation as a calm consensus-builder. Mr Ayrault is a German-speaker, seen as an asset for the president in handling France's relationship with Germany. </p>
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<p>Recep Tayyip Erdogan began a third term of office in June 2011, following a resounding general election win for his Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP).</p>
<p>The election gave the AKP its highest electoral score since coming to power in 2002, and put Mr Erdogan on course to become the most successful leader in Turkey's democratic history.</p>
<p>His party nonetheless fell just short of the majority it was seeking to press ahead with a major constitutional overhaul without the support of other parties in parliament. Mr Erdogan in his victory speech promised to seek compromise with the opposition over the issue.</p>
<p>Mr Erdogan has brought economic and political stability to Turkey and faced down the country's powerful military establishment, which previously had a history of overthrowing elected governments that it saw as challenging either the secular constitution or national security.</p>
<p>Steady military pressure combined with negotiations also brought the Kurdish rebel PKK group to a truce that provided for a withdrawal of all PKK fighters to Iraq from May 2013.</p>
<p>In September 2010, his government won resounding public approval for its plans to change the 30-year-old constitution. The amendments to the constitution were aimed at reducing still further the power of the military and meeting the requirements for EU membership.</p>
<p>Opponents accuse the government of authoritarianism and point to growing intolerance towards critical journalists and media. The Journalists Union of Turkey says 94 were in jail for carrying out their professional duties - the highest number in the world. More than half are members of the Kurdish minority.</p>
<p>The heavy sentences handed down to retired military officers found guilty of conspiring against the Islamist government have also led Mr Erdogan's critics to accuse him of trying to silence the secularist opposition. The prime minister denies that these cases are politically motivated. </p>
<p>Mr Erdogan hinted in October 2012 that he might stand for the presidency in 2014, and is widely expected to made renewed efforts to boost the constitutional powers of the head of state ahead of the vote in order to turn Turkey into a presidential republic.</p>
<p>Mr Erdogan first became prime minister several months after his party's landslide election victory in November 2002. He had been barred from standing in the poll because of a previous criminal conviction for reading an Islamist poem at a political rally. Changes to the constitution paved the way for him to run for parliament in 2003.</p>
<p>He identified EU entry as a top priority and introduced reforms which paved the way for the opening of membership talks in October 2005. although these have run into the twin pillars of widespread European opposition and the eurozone crisis. </p>
<p>Since then Mr Erdogan's foreign policy has concentrated as seeking a role as honest broker in the Middle East by building bridges to Iran and Arab states, while adopting a stridently hostile tone towards Turkey's longstanding ally Israel - albeit falling short of severing diplomatic relations. </p>
<p>The popularity of his "Turkish model" among liberals and moderate Islamic groups in Arab countries has boosted Turkey's prestige, although this has yet to translate into tangible foreign-policy gains for the country.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2013 Mr Erdogan began to look vulnerable for the first time as mass anti-government protests erupted in several cities, further inflamed by the violent police response.</p>
<p>A further threat to Mr Erdogan's continued rule emerged in December 2013, when police launched an inquiry into alleged corruption among the prime minister's allies. Mr Erdogan denounced the probe as a "dirty operation" against his government.</p>
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