What factors account for the success of the French Socialist Party in 1981? Do these same factors suggest an explanation for their defeat in 1993?

For the first ten years of the Fifth Republic, the French Socialist Party, then called the SFIO was in a slow decline. Its leadership was old, it was closely linked with the crises of the Fourth Republic, its membership was waning, and so was its electorate. It is thus remarkable that within a decade of its revitalisation and refounding as the Parti Socialiste (PS) in 1971 it was the dominant force in French politics. Since the high of 1981, the party has experienced dramatic fluctuations in its electoral fortunes, with disasters in 1986 and 1993 being offset by successes in 1988 and most recently in 1997. The question to try to understand is why it was able to amass such support in such a short period of time, only to lose it in an equally short space of time.
Much of the explanation of the success of the re-founded party can be placed on its leader, Fran�ois Mitterrand, who took over the leadership in 1971. He was able to establish himself as the master of the party and head of the non-communist Left in general. This was due to his history and prominence on the French national political scene since 1965 when he had first stood for President opposite de Gaulle. Although he lost, and was also defeated narrowly in the 1974 election, he was able to establish himself as a credible candidate for Presidency. In the PS, he was able to create the vehicle he needed to carry him to the Elys�e palace. His ability to inspire loyalty among the party was seen when his ratings were at record lows throughout the mid-1980s; there was no challenge to his de facto leadership of the PS (after his election, he resigned from the Party and held no further official position in it), and when he declared his intention to run again in 1988, the party rallied around him.
It was upon this tide of socialism that the PS was returned with an absolute majority in the National Assembly in 1981 following Mitterrand's presidential triumph. However, the popularity of Mitterrand alone cannot explain this success. In order to become electable, the PS had to become a moderate party of the Left in order to secure centrist voters in the second round of the two-ballot voting system employed in France. It did this by taking advantage of the change in structural conditions in the Fifth Republic. The PS was never a blue-collar party, but instead a party of the white-collar middle-classes that were emerging at the time. The proportion of the population that could be described as working-class was declining, as was church attendance. This embourgeoisement of the electorate strengthened the PS at the expense of the Communist Party.
As well as the structural factors, the PS took advantage of the important circumstantial factors that had arisen as a result of the demonstrations of May 1968. This massive, spontaneous, student-led social movement created a new political culture on the left, with the emphasis on liberty, individualism, environment, and ethnicity replacing the centrality of the idea of class. The PS was the only party that embraced these ideas; it did so for two reasons, firstly, to attract the new middle-class that were to become the core of the PS's membership, and secondly to gain political capital. Throughout the 1970s, the PS seriously engaged these issues. It produced a Manifesto on the Rights of Women in 1977, which was incorporated into the 1979 Congress majority motion (the party's official programme). In terms of environmentalists, the PS made it clear that it was taking anti-nuclear arguments seriously, by proclaiming that it was in favour of a two year moratorium on nuclear development after any electoral success in order to reassess it problems. It was also the only party that sought to articulate the views raised by the new concept of autogestion (self-management). Finally, its liberal measures towards illegal immigrants earned it support in that area. The PS developed links with the CFDT trade unions, which protected unskilled immigrant workers; the Communist-affiliated CGT union was much more interested in the fates of French workers. The Communist Party and alliance of right-wing parties (RPR-UDF) appeared hostile to immigrants, and thus the PS was a natural choice for immigrant voters and what is more important, their legally-French offspring, known as beurs. These measures allowed the PS to embrace the changing ideological and social conditions of the post-1968 generation and gain politically from this change. None of the other parties made this a priority.
The ideological renaissance was not as thorough as it might have been, as Marxist rhetoric was still being adopted as the party line until the 1979 party congress. However, Mitterrand rejected this as a platform for his presidential campaign, and when voted into power, the realities of political life tempered the revolutionary excesses of some of the activists. With the weakening of the CGT union and the PCF, the party has also been able to easily shed the Marxist policies in favour of market-oriented moderation. The party has moved rightwards, and it has even been said that it could now be termed a social democratic party in the mould of New Labour - this is especially apparent following Jospin's embracing of the market economy after the elections of 1997.
The increase in electoral appeal has been aided by alliances with other, smaller parties of the left, and even with the Communist Party. Hazareesingh believes that it was important for the PS to form an alliance with the PCF, who were at that time the dominant party of the left. To have started as a completely independent party would have resulted in the PS lacking credibility. With the alliance, it could slowly increase its electoral appeal and establish itself as the dominant force on the left of French politics, which its electoral results showed it did throughout the 1970s in different sorts of local, municipal, legislative, and presidential elections. Even though it held an overall majority in the National Assembly after the 1981 elections, and the Joint Programme for Government of 1972 had broken down by 1977 leading to much bitterness between the two parties, the PS formed a coalition with the PCF after 1981; the Communists thus held four ministries in the government. After the 1984 withdrawal of PCF support for the government, there has been no need for a continuance of the alliance; the PS had become large enough to work on its own, and with the continued decline of the PCF, relations between the two parties have soured even further.
The membership, and especially the elite who run the party, also underwent a total renewal. As the party targeted itself towards the new middle-class, so teachers, middle managers, and administrators volunteered as d�put�s or joined the party administration itself. Before Mitterrand had taken over, 70% of the Federation secretaries had been replaced, and the average age of the holders of many key posts had fallen by twenty years. A study of the Nantes party congress in 1977 showed that more than half of the delegates were under forty, and half held university degrees or the equivalent. Again, this renewal can be seen in the National Assembly election of 1981, where over half the socialists returned were first time d�put�s. This movement to a helped the party's image among the electorate, both as a youthful party, and one in touch with the new class of graduate public employees, who formed the base of the party's membership and legislative representation.
This modernisation also helped increase the party membership, which had fallen to 70,000 in 1969, and had resulted in suspension of party activities in some parts of France. However, the recruitment drive of the PS succeeded in boosting membership to 170,000 in 1978, and although the pace of joining slowed following the disappointing election results of that year, it broke the 200,000 barrier after the triumph of 1981, and has been maintaining approximately this level ever since.
Thus we can see that the electoral success of 1981 was due to a strong and popular leader who had just swept to a victory in the Presidential elections, a shifting of ideology away from the declining Communist left, an embracing of the new ideology produced by the events of May 1968, and a successful drive to increase the dynamism and numbers of the party members and participants. Now we must see if these factors have also hindered the party and resulted in its electoral defeats since its height of popularity in 1981.
With regard to Mitterrand's influence, it is undeniable that this was waning dramatically in 1993. The President was old and physically ailing, and his Presidency was suffering. Minds were already beginning to turn to the contest of 1995, and questions arose over both Mitterrand's commitment to the socialist cause and his private life. It was revealed that he had been a member of an extreme right-wing group in his student years, had taken part in demonstrations against immigrants, and had worked for the Vichy regime during the occupation. It was said that he had retained right-wing views throughout his life, and was thus not concerned that his period of premiership had only increased the level of inequality in France. Furthermore, he was dogged by a personal scandal involving an illegitimate daughter, who was present at his funeral in 1996. This decline of a personal figurehead left the PS disorganised and emphasised internal splits over a variety of issues that had remained dormant for as long as Mitterrand had been in charge; these included the French nuclear deterrent, Europe, the nature of the alliance with the PCF, and the role of the market in socialist France, to name but a few. Thus the lack of a charismatic leader certainly contributed to the PS's electoral downfall.
Secondly, the ideological shift towards the new social movements were not supported by the establishment of links with organisation that existed to express concerns about, for example, feminism or the environment. This lack of cultural infrastructure lead to the emergence of separate Green parties that supplied their own presidential and legislative candidates, further dampening PS support.
Other factors that have been suggested for the defeat of 1993 include the simple tiredness of the electorate with a socialist government and subsequent desire for change, and a failure to deal with the problems of unemployment as Europe experienced recession. Undoubtedly these were significant contributing factors, and combined with those that led to the party's success, as well as the simple unsustainability of its electoral climb, meant that it was to be defeated disastrously in 1993. However, with the emergence of another charismatic leader in the Mitterrand mould, as well as well-defined policies for dealing with the economic problems facing France at the moment, the socialists could be in power again for the next few years. The next legislative elections may well show if the socialist party is to become the dominant force in French politics once again.