The Mitterrand Era
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Chirac, the Right-wing victor, immediately embarked on a policy of privatization and monetary control, reversing many of the Socialists' former policies. However, his measures failed to stem rising unemployment. He then made the fatal mistake of flirting with the extreme Right and introduced a series of anti-immigration laws that were roundly condemned by churches and trade unions. In the 1986 presidential elections, Mitterrand, the grand old man of politics, with decades of experience, played off all the factions in an all-but-flawless campaign and won another mandate.

Mitterrand's party, however, failed to win an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections soon afterwards. Although his new prime minister Michel Rocard halted Chirac's programmes, he did not reverse them. The Socialists also reneged on their electoral promise to tackle the social and economic deprivation of France's immigrant ghettos. Polls showed over two-thirds of the adult French population to be in favour of deporting legal immigrants for any criminal offence or for being unemployed for over a year. Jean-Marie Le Pen, extreme right-winger and leader of the racist Front National, began to attract support for his proposals that immigrants should have second-class citizenship, segregated education and separate social security.

The 1980s ended with the most absurd blow-out of public funds ever – the bicentennial celebrations of the French Revolution. They symbolized a culture industry spinning mindlessly around the vacuum at the centre of the French vision for the future. And they highlighted the contrast between the unemployed and homeless begging on the streets and the limitless cash available for prestige projects.

In 1991, Mitterrand sacked Michel Rocard and appointed Édith Cresson as France's first woman prime minister. Her brand of left-wing nationalist rhetoric combined with centrist pragmatism made her highly unpopular at home and abroad. Furthermore, she jumped on the racism bandwagon and said that special planes should be chartered to deport illegal immigrants. Shortly afterwards the International Federation of Human Rights published a highly critical report on racism in the French police force, stating that France "was not the home of human rights".

In 1992, Mitterand staked his reputation on the important Maastricht referendum, which was carried by a narrow margin in favour, splitting the Right and widening the gulf between the Socialists and Communists. Only the extreme end of the political spectrum, the Communists and the Front National remained determinedly anti-Europe. The voters divided along the lines of the poorer rural areas voting "No" and the rich urbanites voting "Yes". The very narrow margin in favour was a considerable disappointment to Mitterrand.

Scandals over cover-ups and corruption that had started under Fabius continued to dog the Socialists, and in 1992 Cresson was replaced with Pierre Bérégovoy. He survived a wave of strikes, but then news broke of a private loan from a friend of Mitterrand accused of insider dealing. The president distanced himself from his prime minister, the Socialists were routed in the 1993 parliamentary elections, and Bérégovoy shot himself two months later, on May Day, leaving no note of explanation.

Ushering in another period of cohabitation, Edouard Balladur, a fresh and fatherly face from the Right, was appointed prime minister. His government carried out a new privatization programme and relied more than ever on market forces. Balladur, however, soon lost the respect of his natural supporters after a series of U-turns following demonstrations by Air France workers, teachers, farmers, fishermen and school pupils, and the state's rescue of the Crédit Lyonnais bank after spectacular losses.

Mitterrand tottered on to the end of his presidential term, looking less and less like the nation's favourite uncle. Two months after Bérégovoy's suicide, Réné Bousquet, head of police in the Vichy government and responsible for the rounding up of Jews in 1942, was murdered. A personal friend of Mitterrand's, he was thought to have carried shady secrets about the president to his grave. A biography of Mitterrand, Le Grand Secret, stirred up further controversy about the president's war record as an official in the Vichy regime before he joined the Resistance. The book was banned in France but avidly read on the Internet.

Allegations of corruption against mayors, members of parliament, ministers and leading figures in industry were becoming an almost weekly occurrence. In 1994 a member of parliament leading a crusade against drugs and corruption on the Côte d'Azur was assassinated. Instead of increasing democracy, decentralization appeared to have licensed fraud and nepotism on an alarming scale. Several mayors ended up in jail, but it seemed as if the Paris establishment was above the law.

Meanwhile, the country's profile abroad was also suffering. In 1994, France sent troops into Rwanda, whose previous murderous government they had supported and armed. French troops were accused of giving protection to French-speaking Hutus responsible for the genocide, and of acting too late to save any of the English-speaking Tutsis. The policy backfired with the new regime in Rwanda taking an anti-French line and the unresolved conflicts spreading to the neighbouring former French colony, Zaire.

The Socialist Party needed a strong leader to take them into the forthcoming elections and were disappointed when the popular Jacques Delors, chair of the European Commission, was unwilling to stand. Instead they had to make do with Lionel Jospin, the rather uncharismatic former education minister, who performed remarkably well in the first round, but lost out to Chirac by a small margin in the second.

By the time Mitterrand finally stepped down, he had been the French head of state for fourteen years, during a period when crime rose and increasing numbers of people found themselves excluded from society by racism, poverty and homelessness. Corruption scandals touched the president, politicians of all parties and business chiefs and, as faith in old left-wing certainties foundered, support for extreme Right policies propelled the Front National from a minority faction to a serious electoral force. Despite this, when he died in January 1996, Mitterrand was genuinely mourned as a man of culture and vision, a supreme political operator, and for his unwavering commitment to the vision of a united Europe.

Mitterand's reputation has been badly tarnished in the last few years however, with a number of scandals surfacing. These include the arrest in 2000 of his son Jean-Christophe on suspicion of selling arms to Angola, and the jailing of his ex-foreign minister and close friend Roland Dumas for his part in a huge corruption scandal involving the Elf oil company. One of the most damaging accusations to come to light is that Mitterand ordered his anti-terrorist unit, formed in 1982, to secretly tap the phones of anyone he considered a potential threat to his public image. It's alleged that the phones of 150 people, including lawyers, journalists and rival politicians, were tapped between 1983 and 1986, and at the time of writing, twelve men, including Louis Schweitzer, current head of Renault, are standing trial.