Economic and Social Consequences of Socialist Policies in France

Abstract

When the Socialist party swept the elections on May 10, 1981, it was the result of three reactions of the French electorate:

• 1. a sanction vote, to reject President Valery Giscard d’Estaing’s policy, judged too conservative by some, too “social democrat” by others.

• 2. an illusion vote, because many French thought that socialists had better recipes for resolving the “crisis.”

• 3. a revolution vote, as the 110 propositions of the “communists and socialists government common program” were conceived to set up collectivism in France.