ABSTRACT
In 1986 the Socialists would ask the country to renew its confidence in them on the basis of the laws they had passed and their record as administrators. The Socialists had thought of themselves as the architects of change. Decentralization, declared "la grande affaire du septennat" by Francois Mitterrand, was a reform carried out by the Socialists, not a socialist reform. One institution created by the constitution of 1958 posed a special problem for the Socialists. Partisan descriptions of the Socialist record in economic management have concentrated on two different periods. The Socialist record on civil liberties was one of the brightest pages of their record, for which they were not given sufficient credit in popular opinion. The reputation for good management that the Socialists had cultivated in 1983–1986 was still insufficient in the minds of voters in 1986 to obliterate the memory of 1981–1983. In 1986 the Socialists faced the imminent surrender of power.
