French legislative elections took place on 14 June and 21 June 1981 to elect the seventh National Assembly of the Fifth Republic.
The Fifth Republic, France's current republican system of government, was established by Charles de Gaulle under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958. The Fifth Republic emerged from the collapse of the Fourth Republic, replacing the former parliamentary republic with a semi-presidential, or dual-executive, system that split powers between a Prime Minister as head of government and a President as head of state. De Gaulle, who was the first French President elected under the Fifth Republic in December 1958, believed in a strong head of state, which he described as embodying l'esprit de la nation.
On 10 May 1981 François Mitterrand was elected President of France. He became the first Socialist to win this post under universal suffrage. It was also the first occasion of alternance (between the right and the left) in government during the Fifth Republic.
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was a French statesman who served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, the longest time in office in French history. As First Secretary of the Socialist Party, he was the first left-wing politician to be elected President of France under the Fifth Republic.
The new head of state nominated Pierre Mauroy to lead a Socialist cabinet. He then dissolved the National Assembly so that he could rely on a parliamentary majority. Indeed, the left had lost the 1978 legislative election and the full term of the National Assembly would have expired in 1983.
Pierre Mauroy was a French Socialist politician who was Prime Minister of France from 1981 to 1984 under President François Mitterrand. Mauroy also served as Mayor of Lille from 1973 to 2001. At the time of his death Mauroy was the emeritus mayor of the city of Lille. He died from complications of lung cancer on 7 June 2013 at the age of 84. He is the namesake of Lille's new stadium, Stade Pierre-Mauroy.
Knocked out after its defeat in the recent presidential election, the right campaigned against the concentration of the powers and the possible nomination of Communist ministers. Yet, it suffered from the economic crisis, the will for change amongst the electorate, and the rivalry between the RPR leader Jacques Chirac and the previous UDF President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. The formation of the Union for a New Majority appeared as a false reconciliation and so, had not convinced voters. Furthermore, as the French Communist Party (PCF) had been declining, and was no longer the dominant party of the Left, it did not seem to be a real danger.
The Rally for the Republic, was a Neo-Gaullist and conservative political party in France. Originating from the Union of Democrats for the Republic (UDR), it was founded by Jacques Chirac in 1976 and presented itself as the heir of Gaullist politics. On 21 September 2002, the RPR was merged into the Union for the Presidential Majority, later renamed the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra from 1995 to 2007. Chirac previously was Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.
The Communist leaders were very disappointed by the result of their candidate, Georges Marchais, in the presidential election, and very worried by the legislative elections. During the presidential campaign, the PCF had denounced the "turn towards the right" of the Socialist Party (PS), in vain. It understood that Mitterrand was ready to win his bet, expressed in the 1972 Congress of the Socialist International, to capture 3 of the 5 millions of PCF voters. Perceiving the great hope of the left-wing voters after Mitterrand's election, Marchais signed a "contract of government" with the First Secretary of the PS Lionel Jospin.
Georges René Louis Marchais was the head of the French Communist Party (PCF) from 1972 to 1994, and a candidate in the French presidential elections of 1981.
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in France and was, for decades, the largest party of the French centre-left. The PS used to be one of the two major political parties in the French Fifth Republic, along with the Republicans. The Socialist Party replaced the earlier French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) in 1969, and is currently led by First Secretary Olivier Faure. The PS is a member of the Party of European Socialists (PES), the Socialist International (SI) and the Progressive Alliance.
The Socialist International (SI) is a worldwide association of political parties which seek to establish democratic socialism. It consists mostly of democratic socialist, social-democratic and labour political parties and other organisations.
The Socialists achieved the biggest electoral success of their history. This result marked the triumph of Mitterrand's strategy. Like the Gaullist UDR in 1968, the PS obtained an absolute parliamentary majority. The Communist decline noted at the presidential election was confirmed. The PCF obtained its poorest result since 1936 and lost the half of its MPs, most of them to the PS. However, four Communists became members of Pierre Mauroy's government. This was the first PCF governmental participation since 1947. The two right-wing parliamentary parties lost the half of their seats too. This result earned the nickname "the pink wave" from the press.
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