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Two Views of the Mitterrand Presidency (1981–88): II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Howard Machin
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Extract

THE AIM OF THIS ARTICLE ON MITTERRAND IS NEITHER TO ‘bury’ him nor to praise him, but rather to assess the impact of his presidency on French politics and French socialism. Any such assessment is inevitably a partial and interim report. The full impact of several socialist reforms (notably those concerning decentralization and workers' rights) might only become apparent after several years of implementation. But in January 1988 Mitterrand is still in the Elyste Palace. Despite his loss of a parliamentary majority in the 1986 elections and his subsequent ‘cohabitation’ with Chirac's RPR-UDF government, Mitterrand has won back, since 1986, considerable popularity and respect.

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Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1988 , pp. 195 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1988

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References

1 With thanks to Pierre Joxe whose ST-ICERD lecture at the London School of Economics (13 January 1987), ‘A changed France or a changed socialism?’, inspired many questions.

2 Mazey, Sonia and Newman, Michael, (eds), Mitterrand’s France, London, Croom Helm, 1987;Google Scholar Ross, George, Hoffmann, Stanley and Malzacher, Sylvia, (eds), The Mitterrand Experiment: continuity and change in modern France, Oxford, Polity Press, 1987;Google Scholar Mazey and Newman is shorter but much more consistent in quality and referencing; Ross et al., are generally good, sometimes sublime (Hall, Prost) and, just once, purely speculative, but they are also very affordable at £11.95 (paperback).

3 Mitterrand, François, Le Coup d’Etat permanent, Paris, Pion 1964.Google Scholar

4 O. Duhamel, ‘The 5th Republic under François Mitterrand’, in Ross et al., op. cit., pp. 140–60.

5 Duhamel, op. cit., p. 154. See also articles by Levy, D.A.L. and Machin, H., and Morgan, R. in Government and Opposition, Vol. 21 No. 3, Summer 1986;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also Modern and Contemporary France, 27, Sept. 1986 (articles by J. Lovecy and B. Jenkins).

6 SOFRES, L’Etat de l’opinion: clés pour 1987, Paris, Seuil, 1987 (especially chapter by J. Jaffre and O. Duhamel).

7 Kecler, J. T. S. and Stone, A., ‘Judicial-political confrontation in Mitterrand’s France’, in Ross et al., op. cit., pp. 161–81.Google Scholar

8 Guehenno, J.-M., ‘France and the electronic media’, Ross et al., op. cit., pp. 277–90.Google Scholar

9 Remond, R., ‘The right as Opposition and future Majority’, Ross et al., op. cit., pp. 128–39; Duhamel, op. cit., pp. 152–53.Google Scholar

10 S. Mazey, ‘La grande affaire du septennat’, Mazey and Newman, op. cit., pp. 103–30; C. Gremion, ‘Decentralization in France; a historical perspective’, and Y. Meny, ‘The Socialist Decentralization’, Ross et al., op. cit., pp. 237–47, 248–62.

11 P. Holmes, ‘Broken Dreams: economic policy in Mitterrand’s France’, Mazey and Newman, op. cit., pp. 33–55; C. Stoffaes, ‘The Nationalisations 1981–4: an initial assessment’, H. Machin and V. Wright, (eds), Economic Policy and Policy-making under the Mitterrand Presidency 1981–1984, pp. 144–8.

12 M. Maclean, ‘The Future of privatisation: a crisis of confidence’, Modern and Contemporary France, 31, Oct. 1987, pp. 1–9.

13 D. A. L. Levy, ‘Foreign policy: business as usual’ (Mazey and Newman), op. cit., pp. 166–91), provides a much clearer analysis than that of Hoffmann in the Ross collection.

14 Machin, H. and Wright, V., ‘Why Mitterrand won’, West European Politics, vol. 5, No. 1, 01 1982, pp. 5–35;CrossRefGoogle Scholar C. Estier, Mitterrand President, Paris, 1981; A. and M-T. Lancelot, ‘The evolution of the French electorate’, and G. Lavau, ‘The Left and Power’, in Ross et al., op. cit., pp. 77—99, 115–27.

15 D. Hanley, ‘The Parti Socialiste Français: socialist synthesis or ambiguous compromise’, in Mazey and Newman, op. cit., pp. 7–32; S. C. Lewis and S. Sferza, ‘French Socialists between State and Society’, in Ross et al., op. cit., pp. 100–14.

16 D. Collins, ‘A more equal society? social policy under the Socialists’, pp. 81–102; strangely, the Ross collection does not cover this topic.

17 Prost, A., ‘the Educational Maelstrom’, in Ross et al., op. cit., pp. 229–36.Google Scholar

18 In Mazey and Newman, Peter Holmes (op. cit.) provides a clear but brief account of economic policies, whilst Ross et al., devote 3 chapters to economics: Richard Kuisel on ‘Post-war economic growth’, Robert Boyer on ‘The current economic crisis’, and Peter Hall on ‘The evolution of economic policy under Mitterrand’.