François Mitterrand

François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was born 26 October 1916 into a family whose influences set him on the Catholic nationalist right. He served under Vichy in its earlier years, then joined the Resistance and drifted left, holding ministerial posts under the Fourth Republic. He opposed de Gaulle's Fifth Republic and spent years as a politically isolated figure before outmaneuvering rivals to carry the left's banner in 1965 and 1974, losing both times. Elected president in 1981 and re-elected in 1988, he invited Communists into his first government - a controversial move that ultimately boxed them in as junior partners and eroded their support until they left the cabinet in 1984. He launched radical left-wing economics, nationalizing key firms and instituting the 39-hour work week, abolished the death penalty, ended state monopolies in broadcasting, and launched a sweep of Grands Projets, but economic pressures soon forced him toward austerity and markets. In 1985 he ordered the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland; in 1991 he appointed France's first female prime minister, Édith Cresson. Twice he governed in cohabitation with conservative cabinets le