ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the events happened in the National Front (NF) during 1981–1986. In the May 1981 presidential election, Socialist leader Francois Mitterrand narrowly beat Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. With a secure majority in the legislature and with Mitterrand in the presidency, the united forces of the left embarked on the most radical program of economic and social change in France since the immediate postwar period. La main droite de Dien (The right hand of God) argued that President Mitterrand deliberately boosted the fortunes of the NF in order to split the mainstream right. In 1983, NF secretary general Jean-Pierre Stirbois and three NF colleagues were elected to the Dreux municipal council in an election that caught the attention of the country and revived the flagging fortunes of the NF. Most observers agreed that the key to Stirbois's success in Dreux lay in his hard-line attacks on North African immigrants and on the "laxity" of French immigration policy.
