ABSTRACT
Giscard d'Estaing was confronted with a resurgent Left convinced that most of the effects of the economic crisis had been brought on by the selfish and shortsighted behavior of French capitalism. When the quarrels of the Left after 1977 seemed to guarantee Giscard's re-election in 1981, many Frenchmen gloomily predicted intense social disorder arising from a blocked political system unable to cope with social and economic crisis. His progressive ideas were translated into law by the legalization of abortion and lowering the voting age to eighteen, but stopped there. In the 1977 municipal elections the Union of the Left at its most united had won city council majorities in 159 of the 221 cities which had more than 30,000 inhabitants. From the Liberation until the early 1970s the winds of political and intellectual fashion in France had blown steadily from the Left.
