ABSTRACT
The collapse of the Communist vote in 1981, amplified at the European elections of 1984, established the Socialists as the dominant party within the Left, and this they have remained ever since, even at their low point of 1993 – a critical change from the balance of left-wing forces since 1945. Indeed, they could briefly appear as France’s dominant party, for the June 1981 parliamentary elections brought them 36 per cent of the first-ballot vote and a single-party majority (the second and so far the last in French republican history) at the run-off. At both presidential elections since 1981, and at three out of four parliamentary elections, the Socialists have had the highest vote of any single party. But ‘dominance’ supposes, at the very least, governmental office, and the Socialists lost this to the Right in 1986.
