ABSTRACT
The election of the Fifth Republic’s first leftwing president in 1981 set the stage for a decade of striking and often unexpected political developments. In view of the defeat of the leftwing coalition in legislative elections of 1978, the fact that Francois Mitterrand won in 1981 was a surprise in itself. The market-oriented policies adopted as a result of Mitterrand’s “U-turn” were bound to result in a large number of layoffs as uncompetitive factories closed and failing companies went bankrupt. Mitterrand’s presidential term had two years to run after the Socialist election defeat in 1993, but the magnitude of the rightwing victory made it clear that his successor would be a conservative. Mitterrand’s presidency, it has been said, put an end to two powerful myths that had shaped much of French history: the myth of France as an autonomous nation-state, able to determine its own destiny, and the myth of a socialist utopia that would put an end to capitalism.
