ABSTRACT
On May 21, 1981, Francois Mitterrand, the newly elected president of the Fifth French Republic, entered the Elysee palace, seat of the presidency, to assume his office. Mitterrand would mark his entry into office with an additional ceremony. After a luncheon at the Elysee for 200 guests, he entered his automobile to proceed to the Left Bank, descending at the corner of the boulevard Saint-Michel and the rue Soufflot. Francois Mitterrand was the new leader of an old party with a complex history. His Parti Socialiste had descended from socialist parties founded as early as 1882, which in the 1905 had merged into the Section Francaisc de l'lnternationale Ouvriere. The Mitterrand who ran for president in 1965 was very far from being the Socialist leader of 1981. To many of the French on the Left he was an improbable standard-bearer.
