ABSTRACT
Epinay might have been an ordinary socialist congress, another one in a long series of noisy and confusing meetings where the various factions of the non-communist left try to sort out their positions on everything from capital punishment to whether there should be first-class wagons in the metro. The real purpose of these congresses was to reach agreement on a strategy for winning the next parliamentary or— since 1965—presidential election. The rising generation included men like Michel Rocard, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, Pierre Joxe, Lionel Jospin, and men about ten years younger, like Laurent Fabius. All would play significant roles in the new PS, and in the socialist ascendancy under Mitterrand in the 1980s, and would continue to dominate French politics in the 1990s. The erasing of the left's political identity was the supreme accomplishment of the Epinay generation. It meant that presidential no less than municipal elections were essentially popularity contests.
