François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand ( fʁɑ̃swa mɔʁis mitɛˈʁɑ̃ (help·info), 26 October 1916 – 8 January 1996) served as the President of France from 1981 to 1995, elected as representative of the Socialist Party (PS). First elected during the May 1981 presidential election, he became the first socialist President of the Fifth Republic and the first left-wing head of state since 1957. He is to date the only member of the Socialist Party to be e...
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François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand ( fʁɑ̃swa mɔʁis mitɛˈʁɑ̃ (help·info), 26 October 1916 – 8 January 1996) served as the President of France from 1981 to 1995, elected as representative of the Socialist Party (PS). First elected during the May 1981 presidential election, he became the first socialist President of the Fifth Republic and the first left-wing head of state since 1957. He is to date the only member of the Socialist Party to be elected as the President of France. He was re-elected in 1988 and held office until 1995, before his death from prostate cancer the following year. At the beginning of each of his two terms, he dissolved the Parliament and held a fresh legislative election in the hope that the Socialist Party would win and he would have a parliamentary majority. This did indeed happen as he hoped; however, both times, his party lost the next legislative elections. He was consequently forced into "cohabitation governments" during the two last years of each of...
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