ABSTRACT
The achievements of the Fabius government have a largely non-Socialist flavor. The real break came in March 1983—the Socialists spent only twenty-one months on the left, thirty-six moving toward the center. Laurent Fabius' mission was to present the new face of the Mitterrand administration. Francois Mitterrand dealt with the Communist leaders because this was the only way to talk over their heads to the Communist voters. The alarming rise in crime statistics had begun well before Mitterrand's election. When Mitterrand unexpectedly received the visiting Polish leader Jaruzelski, giving no explanation, Fabius told the National Assembly that he was "troubled" by the president's action. The political decisions made in 1983, well before Fabius' appointment, led toward a new policy. The government could no longer describe itself as the engine of social change. In 1981 Mitterrand had included in his 110 propositions the rash promise to erect a "unified and secular public education system."
