His people called him the sphinx: Who is François Mitterrand?

Mitterrand is the socialist statesman who served as the longest-serving President of France for two terms, from 21 May 1981 to 17 May 1995. As is often seen in history, he was born in Jarnac, in the southwest of the country, as a member of a Catholic, conservative, right-wing petty-bourgeois family.

He studied first literature and law and then political science in Paris, which undoubtedly influenced his later intellectual transformation. Mitterrand, who was captured by Germany during the Second World War, continued to work for the National Revolutionary Volunteers and be active in resistance movements after returning home. Although he would leave his mark on the Fifth French Republic (1958-…), he entered institutional politics during the Fourth Republic (1946-1958), which coincided with his early years.

François Marie Adrien Maurice Mitterrand[a] (26 October 1916 – 8 January 1996) was a French politician and the President of France from 1981 to 1995, and the longest holder of that position in the history of France. As First Secretary of the Socialist Party, he was the first left-wing politician to assume the presidency under the Fifth Republic.

He was first elected as a member of parliament in 1946 from the centre-right list. However, in the 1950s, Mitterrand shifted ideologically to the left and began to fight in the progressive ranks. During this period, he continued his rise in institutional politics, serving as a minister in different governments (Overseas Minister [1950], Delegate to the Council of Europe [1953], Minister of Internal Affairs [1954], Minister of Justice [1956]). The Algerian war broke out in the 1950s when Mitterrand was actively involved in governments.

When the Algerian rebellion began, Pierre Mendès, as a member of the French government (Minister of Internal Affairs), took an anti-rebellion, pro-order stance with the motto "Algeria is France and the only negotiation is war." Then, as the number three figure (Minister of Justice) in Guy Mollet's government, he became one of the sustainers of government policies. During this period, he showed determination to suppress the Algerian rebellion in order to win the war and became one of those responsible for many massacres. As a matter of fact, his position on the Algerian issue would cause him to be criticized a lot in the following years. The role of Algeria in the independence process and the adequacy of its self-criticism continue to be debated today.

By voting against Charles de Gaulle's vote of confidence in 1958, Mitterrand clarified his attitude towards de Gaulle, the architect of the Fifth Republic, from then on. As a matter of fact, he is symbolized by many with his determined opposition to Gaullism. Mitterrand, who began to take an increasingly radical stance in the 1960s, began to stand out as a strong opposition leader against de Gaulle. However, in the presidential elections in 1965, which he entered for the first time with the slogan of a young president for a modern France, with the support of socialists and communists and even some moderate conservatives and rightists, he lost to General de Gaulle with 44.8% of the votes.

Despite this, with the influence of the voting rate he received, he quickly became the leader of the Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left (FGDS), which includes socialists, radicals, and various left formations in addition to communists. He was subsequently elected as the first secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) at the 1971 Epinay Congress, and the following year he signed a joint government program with the Communist Party and left radicals. However, despite this unity of power on the left, Mitterrand was defeated once again in the presidential elections against Valéry Giscard d'Estaing on May 19, 1974, albeit with a very narrow vote difference (49.19%). After a while after this defeat, the left union disintegrated with the departure of the communists in 1977. However, after the split, in the elections held in 1978, the Socialist Party (PS) surpassed the Communist Party (PCF) for the first time in nearly 40 years. This is actually a moment when a socialist President begins to appear on the horizon.

Mitterrand achieved victory with 51.8% of the votes in the elections held on May 10, 1981, and became the fourth President of the Fifth Republic, taking over the Republic of de Gaulle, which he described as a permanent coup. Thus, as the communists and all other left radicals, who were known for their strong opposition at the time, would also accept, they adopted the Fifth Republic together with its institutions.

Mitterrand lived up to the hope he created in the first years of his term and implemented a number of important reforms. However, after a while, the government began to experience economic difficulties (due to increasing unemployment and inflation), especially due to large increases in public expenditures. Thus, as a precaution, in 1983, contrary to its policies in the first period, it started to implement neoliberal policies by cutting public expenditures, which would begin the bad luck of the French center-left.

However, in terms of parliamentary politics, the cost of these policies was very heavy for the left. In the 1984 European Elections, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party received only 31.95% of the votes. In the 1986 Parliamentary Elections, which were held in a conjuncture in which the popularity of Mitterrand and the Socialist Party was gradually decreasing, the left was defeated once again and Mitterrand had to appoint Jacques Chirac, the leader of the right-wing union that gained the majority, as prime minister. Thus, for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, the left and the right had to share power together (cohabitation - people with different views sharing power, conducting business together). Despite this, in the presidential elections on May 8, 1988, Mitterrand was once again elected President against Jacques Chirac, receiving 54% of the votes. In the following parliamentary elections, the Socialist Party achieved a successful result and formed the government. However, the socialist government was stuck between the communists, whose support it could not get, and the right-wing, which increased the opposition, causing France to experience an unsuccessful period. As a result, in the 1993 general elections, the socialist group was able to win only 70 out of 577 seats. Thus, Mitterrand was once again forced to appoint a right-wing figure, Edouard Balladur, as prime minister (Deuxième cohabitation – Second Cohabitation).

In these years, Mitterrand came to the fore mostly due to his health problems. As a matter of fact, after handing over his post to Jacques Chirac in May 1995, he died in Paris on January 8, 1996, at the age of 79, due to prostate cancer, which was diagnosed in the first year of his presidency.