ABSTRACT
The American constitutional system stipulates a ten-week interim between an election and the inauguration of a new president. France knows little delay. During the next fourteen years the French became familiar with a new set of Socialist leaders previously little known to the public at large. With a few exceptions, the ministers of the first and second Mauroy governments would remain in most of the Socialist governments formed during Mitterrand's two terms. Nationalization had figured large in the Common Program of 1972, although oddly enough it was not part of the ancestral heritage of the French Left. The strongest element in Francois Mitterrand's socialism was a passion for social justice. The Versailles summit marked the end of phase one of the Mitterrand presidency, when the Socialists basked in the unwarranted self-assurance, displaying an arrogance based on misreading the election results.
