Forty years ago, François Mitterrand acceded to the Elysee, offering the left the first alternation in the history of the Fifth Republic after twenty-three years of reign of the right.

The socialist candidate was elected on May 10, 1981, with nearly 52% of the vote against the outgoing Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who believed in his re-election until the end.

President of the Republic from 1981 to 1995 - a longevity record under the Fifth Republic - François Mitterrand remains a totem for the left, especially since in 1981, no one believed in his election.

The magazine Le Point even headlines "Can Giscard lose?".

For the political scientist Gérard Grunberg, this historic victory is that of an "extraordinary politician" who knew "how to make the lefts work together who could not get along".

The fruit of concessions wrested in particular from the Communist Party, but also of a combination of favorable circumstances.

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No one imagined a victory for the left in 1981 and yet François Mitterrand won.

How to explain this victory?

François Mitterrand was an extraordinary politician, certainly the most gifted, after De Gaulle, in the entire history of the Fifth Republic. What made him strong was that he understood politics very well and that he had only one goal: to gain power. He put all his intelligence at the service of this and succeeded in making lefts who could not get along work together. But he was also lucky. He knew how to take advantage of opportunities. Recall that he was narrowly elected [a million votes ahead of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Editor's note] while benefiting from a certain alignment of the planets.

First, on the left, the Communist Party collapsed in the first round, obtaining only 15% of the vote. The image of the PCF deteriorated during the 1970s after the revelations concerning the Soviet Union. Moreover, the fact that the Communists did not present any candidate for the 1974 presidential election and that they did not seem certain of their strategy between 1974 and 1981 led to the departure of many voters who ended up preferring the Socialist Party. The second important factor, of course, is the division of the right which proposes two candidates: the outgoing president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, and his former Prime Minister, Jacques Chirac, who has done everything or almost to do losing Giscard in the second round.

Finally, the context plays for Mitterrand.

French society in 1981 thirsted for political alternation.

There is an important workers' vote for the left, but also, and this is the novelty that appeared in the 1970s, the new young middle classes who adhere to cultural liberalism and who vote on the left.

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Forty years after his victory, François Mitterrand retains an image of unifier of the left.

However, it was disunited in the presidential election ...

It is true that the union of the left no longer exists in 1981, but François Mitterrand had the intelligence to present himself as the candidate of the union. In the minds of the French, he is the one who has been fighting for ten years [the Epinay congress took place in 1971, editor's note] to unite the left, he is the one who allowed the signing of the joint program with the PCF in 1972 and he is the one who was the sole candidate of the left for the 1974 presidential election, narrowly lost by 400,000 votes. In addition, the end of the union of the left, in 1977, was caused by the Communists, who understand that the Socialists are in the process of supplanting them. So, unlike the secretary general of the Communist Party, Georges Marchais, François Mitterrand enjoys the image of the unifier,all the more so as it incorporates a large part of the common program in its proposals.

Today's left-wing parties explain their disunity by their political disagreements, but there were also major disagreements within the left in the early 1970s. How did François Mitterrand manage to build this famous common program ?

There were many disagreements! If only at the international level, in the midst of the Cold War: François Mitterrand is a pro-European Atlanticist, when Georges Marchais must follow the line imposed by Moscow. Institutionally, the PCF is fundamentally against the Fifth Republic while François Mitterrand understood that it represented his only chance to gain power. There are also disagreements on the economic level, especially regarding the extent of nationalizations to be carried out. The difference with today is that everyone wanted union. The common program was able to see the light of day because the PCF was ready to give in on many things. And above all, François Mitterrand represented for all the left the hope of a victory. Today, no one imagines that the left can return to power,the more so as it is scattered under many labels, that its representatives do not cease insulting each other and that its weight in the electorate has dropped considerably. The left no longer manages to convince French people who are increasingly tempted by right-wing discourse.

From 1981 to 2021, how to understand this right-wing electorate?

The divisions of the time have disappeared.

Globalization and economic liberalism have triumphed and the left has accompanied these transformations.

Result: the French, in particular the popular classes, were disappointed by the left which, once in power, did not change much to their situation.

When the Socialists are in opposition, they have a left program, when they are in power they apply the opposite policy, and then they say they were wrong.

This is exactly what the first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, did a few years ago, with a very severe inventory of François Hollande's five-year term.

The consequence of this is voters who no longer vote or who vote for the right, or even the extreme right.

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