Mitterrand, François

   (adj. Mittérandiste)

   (1916 - 1996)

   Françoisz Mitterrand was the longest serving French president under the Fifth Republic. Mitterrand, a Socialist, served two full terms in office, from 1981 to 1995. He was also the oldest president of the Fifth republic, leaving the job at the age of 78. History will judge how successful Mitterrand was; adulated by his supporters, he was much maligned by his political opponents; but for the second period of both his terms, he was obliged to appoint a Prime Minister from the conservative opposition (leading to a state of "cohabitation" (q.v.)), following mid-term rejections of his socialist administrations. He will perhaps be remembered as an indecisive president; from 1981 to 1983, he oversaw left-wing policies, including the nationalisation of some banks and other major companies; but from 1983 onwards, this policy went into reverse, and from then on state companies were progressively privatized. He did much to free France from the tight constrictions of the Gaullist state, abolishing the death penalty and removing state control of the media; but he was party to a notorious act of international piracy, the sinking of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in the harbour at Auckland, New Zealand, in which a Greenpeace activist was killed.

   Reelected in 1988, he pledged to follow a policy that was neither too left, nor too right. Known as the "ni-ni" policy ("neither nor" policy), this was frequently interpreted as being tantamount to no policy at all, and led to a crushing defeat for the Socialists in the 1993 general elections, as France's economic situation declined.