Abstract

By gaining election as the Fifth Republic's fourth president in May 1981, François Mitterrand must surely have savored his revenge against Charles de Gaulle, the Fifth Republic's founder and first president. Mitterrand was among de Gaulle's foremost opponents in the early years of the republic and author of a fiery indictment of de Gaulle, Le Coup de'Etat Permanent. Mitterand's unrelenting and tenacious opposition to the forces dominating the Fifth Republic culminated in his stunning victory of May 10, 1981, followed six weeks later by the election of an absolute majority of Socialist party deputies to the National Assembly. The electoral triumph decisively swept from office the conservative coalition, including the remnants of Gaullism, which had dominated the Fifth Republic for twenty-three years.