FRANCOIS MITTERRAND: His Reconstruction of the Socialist
Party and His Drive Toward The Presidency in 1981
In 1981 for the first time in the French Fifth Republic, a socialist government, led by Francois Mitterrand, was elected to office. This victory was indeed a significant political achievement when one considers that, little more than a decade earlier, the Socialist Party had managed to obtain only 5.1 percent of the vote. In just over one decade the Socialist Party had grown and united under the skilled and professional leadership of Francois Mitterrand.
In 1981 the socio-economic and political atmosphere was ripe for a socialist victory. The ruling right-wing-centrist coalition was deeply divided and fragmented. A bitter and politically damaging rivalry between Jacques Chirac and Giscard D'Estain had evolved and further exacerbated political divisions in the right wing. Economically, France in 1981 was in decline because of rising unemployment and inflation. The socialists provided an alternative mandate and a new vision for LA FRANCE.
Francois Mitterrand's leadership of the Socialist Party was critical to the expansion and ultimate victory of the party. Ironically, he formally became a Socialist only on the day he took over the party in 1971. When he became party leader, he worked to balance the left and make his party the dominant party of the left. In the late 1960's and well into the 1970's, Mitterrand had tried to expand party membership. It increased from 80,000 in 1971 to more than 200,000 in 1981. He worked to assimilate smaller, left-wing parties into the Socialist Party. A clear illustration of the latter was his persuading the small but growing United Socialist Party, led by Michel Rocard, to join the Socialist Party. Mitterrand also made overtures to the Communist-dominated French trade union movement. No socialist party in Europe had ever managed to attain power without trade union ...