First Female

Paris (AFP) - Anne Hidalgo (above), a Spanish-born Socialist, will be the first female mayor of Paris after an unexpectedly comfortable win in municipal elections on Sunday.

Hidalgo, 54, had been expected to be run extremely close by her centre-right rival, former government minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, on a night when the Socialists took a beating from voters across the country because of the unpopularity of President Francois Hollande's government.

But Hidalgo emerged with 54.5 percent of second round votes in the capital, comfortably seeing off Kosciusko-Morizet's challenge, according to exit polls.

An old school feminist socialist, Hidalgo has spent the last 13 years as a low-profile deputy to current mayor Bertrand Delanoe.

She will now join an exclusive club of women who have taken charge of major cities around the world.

Members currently in office include Ana Botella, the mayor of Madrid, Cape Town's Patricia de Lille and Carolina Toha, who runs Santiago, Chile.

Born near Cadiz in the southwestern corner of Spain in 1959, Hidalgo moved to France as an infant and grew up in a working class suburb of Lyon.

As a child, she spoke Spanish to her parents and French to her sister. She became a French national at the age of 14, dropping her native Christian name Ana in favour of the more traditionally French Anne.

She has been known to approvingly quote the words of writer Sacha Guitry: "Being a Parisian is not about being born in Paris, it is about being reborn there."

After working as a works inspector, Hidalgo became an advisor to former Labour minister Martine Aubry, the architect of France's 35-hour working week. But she was a relatively late entrant to the Socialist Party, only signing up in her mid-30s when the party was under the leadership of Lionel Jospin -- a leader who had a similar unflashy style and reputation for integrity.

After Hollande was elected president in 2012, Hidalgo was widely tipped for promotion to ministerial office. She opted instead to remain at City Hall and wait for the opportunity to take over from Delanoe.

Described as "honest, serious and modest" by her friends, she also has a steely side, according to a long-time colleague on the council that governs Paris, Green deputy Denis Baupin.

"It is a case of an iron fist in a velvet glove," he says. "Behind the apparent flexibility, she likes to get her way."

But, then again, doesn’t everybody