François Mitterrand

François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (October 26, 1916 – January 8, 1996; {{audio|Fr-François_Mitterrand.ogg|pronunciation}}) was a French politician. He was elected President of France in May 1981, re-elected in 1988 and held office until 1995.

Early career

Mitterrand was born in Jarnac, Charente. In his youth he was a staunch conservative and an ardent Catholic. His first political act was to join the ultranationalist Croix de Feu, which he did in preference to the larger but equally conservative Action Française due to the proscription of the latter organisation by the Vatican.

Related Topics:
Jarnac - Charente - Ultranationalist - Croix de Feu - Action Française - Vatican

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Enrolled during WWII, he was made prisoner in 1940 and escaped in 1941. He reached the so-called free zone and become an employee of the Vichy government.

Related Topics:
WWII - Prisoner - 1940 - 1941 - Vichy government

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In December 1942, Mitterrand wrote in the official Vichy journal France, revue de l'État nouveau:

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:"If France doesn't want to die in the mud, the last French people worthy of this name must declare a merciless war against all who, here or abroad, are preparing to open floodgates against it: Jews, Freemasons, Communists... always the same, and all of them Gaulists."

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:"Si la France ne veut pas mourir dans cette boue là, il faut que les derniers français dignes de ce nom déclarent une guerre sans merci à tous ceux qui, à l'intérieur comme à l'extérieur, se préparent à lui ouvrir les écluses : juifs, maçons, communistes...toujours les mêmes et tous gaullistes".

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Later he worked with the French Resistance in a group including several Vichy officials, while still holding his job. Almost until his death, Mitterrand would lay a wreath every year on the grave of Pétain, the head of the Vichy government and a French hero of the First World War; in 1943 he received the Francisque, the honorific distinction of the Vichy regime. When Mitterrand's Vichy past was exposed in the 1950s, he initially denied having received the Francisque.

Related Topics:
French Resistance - Pétain - First World War - 1943 - 1950s

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After the war he quickly moved back into politics. In 1946 he was elected as representative for the Nièvre département and in 1947 joined a centerist grouping, the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR). He held various offices in the Fourth Republic as deputy and minister (with eleven portfolios), before resigning in 1957 over the French policies during the Algerian war of independence. Mitterrand is said to have covered up, as justice minister, various illegal acts, including torture, during the repression of the independence movement.

Related Topics:
Politics - 1946 - Nièvre - Département - Fourth Republic - 1957 - Algerian war of independence

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In 1958, he was one of the few to object to the nomination of Charles de Gaulle as head of government, and lost his seat in the 1958 elections, beginning a long "crossing of the desert". In 1959, on the avenue de l'Observatoire in Paris, Mitterrand escaped an assassin's bullet by diving behind a hedge. The incident brought him a great deal of publicity, boosting his political ambitions. Some of his critics claim that he had staged the incident himself. Prosecution was initiated on the issue but was later dropped.

Related Topics:
1958 - Charles de Gaulle - 1959 - Paris

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In the Fifth Republic he stood in the Presidential elections against Charles de Gaulle in 1965 but was defeated. President of the Democratic and Socialist Federation of the Left(coalition of socialists and liberals) from 1965 to 1968, he turned to the French Socialist Party (PS), becoming leader of the party by 1971, following the Congress of Epinay. He stood again in 1974 opposite Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and was again defeated.

Related Topics:
Fifth Republic - Charles de Gaulle - 1965 - French Socialist Party - 1971 - 1974 - Valéry Giscard d'Estaing

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