Abstract

The victory of the French Socialist Party is an exceptional event. France is the first country in the West since the end of the sixties to have elected a Left government explicitly committed to a program of political, economic, social and cultural reform. The dramatic electoral success of the Socialist Party in May 1981 has placed it in an unprecedented position of power on the basis of the very institutions established by De Gaulle to block the Left: the Socialists control not only the government and the extraordinarily powerful presidency, but also the assembly in which they hold an absolute majority.