Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We have waded
through an enormous pile of sources, biographies,
personal memoirs, declassified reports, and we're
here to boil it all down. We want to give you
the most vital, the most surprising insights
without you having to read a thousand pages.
Today, we're trying to get our heads around a
figure who is just, I mean, the ultimate political
enigma, Francois Mitterrand. France's longest
serving president in office from 1981. all the
way to 1995. But it's not just about the length
of time he was in power. He was genuinely revolutionary.
The first left -wing politician to actually win
the presidency under the Fifth Republic. He completely
redrew the political map. He did. But the story,
and this is why we're doing this deep dive, it
is not some simple linear rise to power. It's
a story of profound, almost unbelievable contradictions.
Right. And that is really the mission today,
to get to the heart of this paradox. How does
a man who starts his political life as a Catholic
nationalist on the far right. Who works for the
collaborationist Vichy regime. How does that
man become a hero of the resistance and then
later the leader who finally unites the Socialist
Party and sweeps them into power. It's a career
built on you could say strategic ambiguity. on
secrets yeah so we're going to trace his entire
political journey using all these sources from
his conservative youth right up to his death
yeah we want to understand what made him such
a uniquely very french president okay so to understand
the man you have to start at the beginning the
foundation you do and his foundation is jarnak
1916 a small town his family was uh devoutly
catholic very traditional very conservative his
father was a station master So not exactly a
radical upbringing. And when he gets to Paris
in 1934 for his studies, his politics reflect
that completely. The sources are really clear
on this. Oh, absolutely. He immediately falls
in with the ultra -nationalist right. For about
a year, he's a member of the Voluntaires Nationaux.
And we should be clear, this isn't just a conservative
student club. This was the youth wing of the
Croix de Fou, a far -right league. A very aggressive
political group. They were key participants in
the February 1934 riots. The riots that actually
brought down a left -wing government. And he
wasn't just a member, was he? He was writing.
He was writing articles for Le Show de Paris,
a newspaper very close to those circles. So he's,
you know, he's fully immersed. Biographers talk
about him being at extremist rallies, demonstrations
against what they call the invasion metech. A
deeply xenophobic term for immigrants. Exactly.
Now, later in life, Mitterrand would always try
to... downplay this period. He'd say it was just,
you know, the folly of youth, the environment
he was in. But the evidence points to a much
deeper commitment. Some reports even suggest
he had connections through family and friends
to members of La Cagu, which was an actual far
right terrorist organization in the 30s, setting
off bombs. I mean, this is the world he was in.
So what happens? How does this guy steeped in
ultra nationalism start to change? Is there a
single moment? It seems to be less of a lightning
bolt and more of a. a slow burn. And it starts
with a person. Our sources all point to his friendship,
starting around 1938, with a man named Georges
Dayan. Who was a Jewish socialist? Right. And
this close personal friendship seems to have
forced Mitterrand to actually confront the anti
-Semitic reactionary ideas he'd been surrounded
by. It's a pattern you see with him again and
again. He was a pragmatist, but he could be profoundly
shaped by the people he was close to. no matter
their politics. Then, of course, comes the war,
the ultimate test for everyone in that generation.
He's mobilized. He's a sergeant. And he's captured
in June 1940. He spends the next year and a half
as a prisoner of war in Stalag IXA. And this
experience, he would later claim, was the real
catalyst, the thing that finally pushed him to
the left. That was his narrative. Yeah. After
two failed attempts, he finally escapes in December
1941 and makes his way back to unoccupied France.
to Vichy France. And this is where it gets incredibly
murky. This is the period that would haunt him
for the rest of his life. It is, because instead
of, say, trying to get to London to join de Gaulle,
he gets a job, a mid -level civil service job
in the Vichy administration. Which, as you said
earlier, for an escaped POW, that's highly unusual.
Very. First at the Legion for Combatants, then
at the office for reclassifying POWs. Now, his
defense was always that this was a cover, a way
to do resistance work from the inside. And there
is some evidence for that, right? He was working
for a man who turned out to be a British spy.
He was, Jean -Paul Favre de Thierry. So it's
plausible he was helping with disinformation.
But at the exact same time, he's publishing an
article in a magazine called France, Revue de
l 'Etat Nouveau. A Vichy propaganda magazine.
Pure propaganda. This is why that term, Vichy
-resistant, is so perfect. It was coined by the
historian Jean -Pierre Azema to describe these
figures who... You know, they accepted Pétain's
authority at first, but then pivoted hard to
the resistance later on. They were walking this
incredible tightrope. And nothing illustrates
that tightrope better than the Francis controversy.
Oh, the Francisque. In the spring of 1943, he
receives the Order of the Francisque. This was
Vichy's highest honor. And getting, it wasn't
just like getting a medal, was it? Not at all.
To receive it, you had to swear a personal oath
of loyalty to Marshal Pétain. You were formally
committing yourself to the Vichy ideology. So
how does he explain that? If he's a secret resistant,
how does he justify swearing an oath to the head
of a collaborationist state? Well, when this
all came out in the 1950s, the story got very
confused. At first, some said he denied it, that
he was just nominated for it, but went into hiding
before he could get it. But then a more convenient
story emerged. A much more convenient story.
A prominent socialist resistance leader, Jean
-Pierre Bloch, came forward and claimed he actually
ordered Mitterrand to accept the medal. As cover.
As the ultimate deep cover. Which, if true, turns
an act of collaboration into an act of heroic
sacrifice. But the fact that such an elaborate
defense was needed tells you everything, doesn't
it? The suspicion never really went away. It
never did. Biographers point to this period as
Mitterrand having, you know, a foot in each camp.
Until it was clear who was going to win. And
look at his later actions. His continued friendship
with René Bousquet, the Vichy police chief responsible
for deporting Jews. His private wreath laying
on Pétain's tomb. This wasn't just a youthful
mistake. It was a lifelong ambiguity. An ambiguity
that shaped his view of France's official history,
even as president. In 1994, he was still insisting
that the French Republic bore no responsibility
for the deportation of the Jews. He was. He argued
it was the work of Vichy France, which he claimed
was his illegitimate entity, separate from the
real France. He said, I do not believe France
is responsible. A stance that his successors
completely rejected. Forcefully. Jacques Chirac,
in 95, gave that landmark speech acknowledging
France's role, the French police who obeyed.
And Macron went even further, saying it was indeed
France that organized it. So Mitterrand's attempt
to sanitize that history was systematically dismantled
after he left office. OK, but by late 1943, that
ambiguity ends. He is, without question, fully
in the resistance. He is. He builds his own network,
the RNPG, focused on gathering intelligence from
POWs. This was real dangerous work. But even
within the resistance, there was politics. His
network was initially aligned with General Giroux,
not de Gaulle. Right. And that put him on a collision
course with the leader of the Free French from
day one. De Gaulle had his own guy. He wanted
to run the POW networks. Mitterrand, in a move
that would define his career, refused to just
step aside and merge his group. He wanted to
be in charge. Theo always wanted to be in charge.
Always. He eventually has to flee to London on
a Lysander plane, using the code name Moreland,
and then to Algiers. The merger happens, but
Mitterrand ends up as the leader. And what about
that first meeting with de Gaulle? Famously frosty.
De Gaulle was deeply suspicious of this independent
operator. The best story is from after the liberation.
Mitterrand, being Mitterrand, just sort of occupies
a vacant government ministry. De Gaulle hears
about it and supposedly mutters, you again. and
has him kicked out within two weeks. He saw him
as a rival from the very beginning. Absolutely,
a political animal. But before we leave the war,
we have to mention his role at the very end,
the liberation of the camps. Yes, in April 45,
he's with the Allied forces at the liberation
of Dachau. And he sees the absolute horror. But
there's this deeply personal story in our sources.
His friend, Robert Antelme, from his resistance
network, is there. He's dying of typhus. And
under quarantine, they weren't letting anyone
out. Right. And Mitterrand... basically organizes
his escape, smuggles him out, risks everything
to get him back to France for medical treatment.
It's the perfect illustration of the man, a cynical
political operator who was also capable of incredible
acts of personal loyalty and courage. So after
the war, Mitterrand's rise is just meteoric.
It's stunningly fast. He gets himself elected
as a deputy in 1946 under a centrist banner,
the RGR. And then in the chaotic Fourth Republic,
he just collects cabinet posts. Eleven different
ministerial portfolios. It's an incredible number.
It speaks to his adaptability and the instability
of the government. But the most significant and
I think most damaging roles were tied to the
Algerian War. He's interior minister in 1954,
right at the start of the conflict. And that's
when he makes that famous hardline statement.
Algeria is France. No question of independence.
But the real controversy comes when he's justice
minister, from 56 to 57. Yes, under the socialist
Prime Minister Guy Mollet. During his time as
justice minister, the sources confirmed he approved
the execution of 45 Algerian nationalists. He
often recommended rejecting their requests for
clemency. Forty five executions for a man who
would later become famous for abolishing the
death penalty. That is a staggering contradiction.
It is. And critics like the writer Anthony Daniels
were brutal about this. They basically said Mitterrand
was for the death penalty when it was politically
popular in the 50s and against it when public
opinion shifted by the 80s. It points to a kind
of ruthless opportunism. His principles often
seem secondary to whatever was necessary for
power. All right. So then comes 1958. The Fourth
Republic collapses and General de Gaulle returns
to power. This is a huge setback for Mitterrand.
A massive one. He is one of the very few big
names to oppose de Gaulle's return. He campaigns
against the new constitution for the Fifth Republic
and he loses his seat. This is the start of his
so -called traversée du désert, his time in the
political wilderness. But he uses that time,
doesn't he? He reinvents himself. He does. He
becomes the leading intellectual opponent of
Gaullism. In 1964, he writes this incredibly
influential book, Le Coup d 'Etat, The Permanent
Coup. Which is just a brilliant takedown of the
Fifth Republic's constitution. It is. He argues
that de Gaulle has concentrated far too much
power in the presidency, that he's weak in parliament.
He basically frames the entire system as fundamentally
undemocratic, and it makes him the ideological
leader of the opposition. But during this period,
there's also an incident that almost destroys
him. The observatory affair. Ah, yes. 1959. Mitterrand
claims he's the target of an assassination attempt.
Says he had to dive behind a hedge to escape
machine gun fire. It gets huge media coverage.
But pretty quickly, people start to suspect he
staged the whole thing. They do. The story seems
a bit too convenient, a bit too dramatic. It
casts this lasting shadow over his reputation.
The whiff of cynicism of a man desperate for
publicity, it really stuck to him for a while.
So how does he survive that politically? A scandal
like that would end most careers. He was just
incredibly resilient. But the key moment comes
in 1965 when he runs for president against de
Gaulle. De Gaulle's advisors tell him, you know,
use the observatory affair, finish him. And de
Gaulle refuses. He refuses. He says. Vanously,
it would be wrong to demean the office of the
presidency since one day he, Mitterrand, may
have the job. It's an incredible moment of foresight.
De Gaulle recognized Mitterrand's stature, even
with all the flaws. So that 1965 election, even
though he loses, it really establishes him as
the leader of the left, right? It does. He manages
to unite a big chunk of the non -communist left
and, crucially, forces De Gaulle into a second
round runoff, which nobody expected. He proved
that a unified left could actually compete. But
the real masterstroke, the big power play, comes
a few years later, the 1971 Epinay Congress.
This is the pivotal moment. Mitterrand, who isn't
even a lifelong member of the Socialist Party,
basically executes a brilliant political takeover.
A coup. A coup. He builds an alliance with the
younger, more radical factions inside the party
and ousts the old guard leader, Guy Mollet. His
goal was to transform the old, weak Socialist
Party into a disciplined machine that could take
on the Gaullist state. And he gives that famous
speech defining the new party. He does. He says,
whoever does not accept the break with the established
order, with capitalist society, cannot be an
adherent of the Socialist Party. A very clear,
very radical statement. It was a signal. And
he immediately puts it into practice by forging
an alliance with the French Communist Party,
the PCF. They create the common program. The
union of the left. And that's what makes him
a real contender. That's the key. In 1974, running
on that platform, he almost wins. He gets 49
.19 % of the vote against Giscard this time.
Giscard famously calls him a man of the past
in their debate. He did. But Mitterrand had laid
all the groundwork. He'd united the socialists
and communists. And in doing so, he'd started
the process of making the socialists the dominant
force and beginning the long, slow decline of
the Communist Party. So by the time we get to
1981, his third attempt, he's perfected the image,
the quiet force. Exactly. And he wins. He beats
Giscard with nearly 52 percent of the vote. It
was a political earthquake. After 23 years of
the right in power, the left had finally won.
Mitterrand hadn't just won an election. He had
completely remade the French left. So Mitterrand
comes to power in 81 and the atmosphere on the
left is just. It's electric. Yeah. He appoints
Pierre Marois as prime minister, gets a huge
majority in parliament, and even puts four communists
in his cabinet, which was a huge deal. And they
just hit the ground running with this incredibly
ambitious, radical program. Oh, immediately.
The first two years are this full -throated Keynesian
experiment. They're trying to boost the economy
with massive public spending, totally going against
the grain of what Thatcher and Reagan were doing
elsewhere. Let's run through some of the changes
because the pace is just staggering. It is. Economically,
they nationalize huge swaths of the economy.
Five major industrial groups, all the big private
banks, insurance companies. And on the social
front? A 10 % hike in the minimum wage right
away. They bring in the 39 -hour work week, five
weeks of paid holiday, and they create the solidarity
tax on wealth aimed squarely at the rich. And
legally, the changes were just as profound. Abolishing
the death penalty. That was a huge symbolic victory.
They got rid of special state security courts,
a massive regularization of undocumented immigrants.
And just pumping money into the welfare state.
Huge amounts. Pensions went up. Social benefits
increased. They brought in retirement at age
60. I mean, it was a complete transformation
of the social and economic landscape. It sounds
amazing, but also completely unsustainable. How
long could that possibly last? Not long. Two
years. By March of 1983, it all comes to a screeching
halt. Mitterrand is forced into what the French
call the tonneau de la rigueur, the turn to austerity.
So what went wrong? The stimulus just overheated
the economy. Inflation was soaring, the trade
deficit was massive, and they had to devalue
the franc three times. France was bleeding money
and becoming isolated. He had to choose between
his socialist program and France's place in Europe.
That's exactly it. To stay in the European monetary
system, which he saw as vital, he had to slam
on the brakes. He abandoned the radical spending
and pivoted to fighting inflation and fiscal
restraint. That must have been a crushing blow
for his supporters, a total betrayal for some.
How did he survive it politically? It was classic
Mitterrand. He was a pragmatist. He framed it
not as an ideological defeat, but as a necessary
choice for Europe. And this is key. He protected
the social gains. The 39 -hour week, the five
weeks of holiday, retirement at 60, those stayed.
He kept the social architecture, even as he changed
the economic engine. Okay, and right after this
U -turn, one of the biggest scandals of his presidency
erupts. The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. Yes,
1985. The Greenpeace ship is in Auckland, New
Zealand, getting ready to protest French nuclear
tests. And Mitterrand authorizes French intelligence,
the DGSE, to... Well, to sink it. State -sponsored
terrorism is what it was. They plant two mines
on the hull. The ship sinks, and a photographer,
Fernando Pereira, is killed. The New Zealand
government was, understandably, furious. And
the mid -Iran government's first response was
to deny everything. But then the Kiwis arrest
two DGSE agents, and the whole story unravels.
The defense minister has to resign. France pays
millions in compensation. And it was later confirmed
that Mitterrand himself gave the green light.
Yes. The head of the DGSE at the time confirmed
it years later. Mitterrand personally authorized
the operation. The responsibility goes right
to the top. This all leads to the 1986 legislative
elections, which the right wins. And Mitterrand
has to appoint his arch rival Jacques Chirac
as prime minister. The first cohabitation. An
unprecedented situation. And Mitterrand plays
it like a chess master. He keeps control of foreign
policy and defense, his reserve domain. And uses
his presidential powers to just block Chirac
at every turn on domestic policy. Systematically.
Chirac wants to pass reforms by decree to speed
things up. Mitterrand refuses to sign them. He
forces Chirac to go through the slow parliamentary
process, which gives the opposition time to organize.
He even reportedly secretly encouraged the student
protests against Chirac's university reforms.
He did. He positioned himself as the wise protector
of the nation against Chirac's divisive policies.
And it worked. By the 1988 presidential election,
Mitterrand's popularity was high again, and he
easily won reelection against a bruised and battered
Chirac. So his second term, he starts off strong.
He does. And there's a real focus on consolidating
the social safety net. The biggest achievement
here is the creation of the RMI, the minimum
income for the poorest citizens. It's a landmark
piece of welfare legislation. He also brings
back some of the policies Chirac had gotten rid
of. Right. The solidarity tax on wealth comes
back immediately, and he passes the Gaysot Act
in 1990, which makes Holocaust denial a crime.
And this is also the period of his grand architectural
projects, the Grands Projects. Yes, he wanted
to leave a physical mark on Paris and on France.
The Louvre Pyramid is the most famous one, but
also the Grand Arche de la Défense, the Bastille
Opera, the new National Library. These were more
than just buildings, weren't they? They were
statements. about French culture, about presidential
power. He quadrupled the National Museum budget.
He saw the state as the great patron of the arts.
And he used that power to reshape the capital
in his image. But the politics of his second
term got messy. Very messy. He goes through a
series of prime ministers. Edith Cresson, the
first woman to hold the job, doesn't last long.
Then Pierre Bergavoy, whose government suffers
a catastrophic defeat in the 93 election. The
left just gets wiped out. Annihilated. which
leads to the second cohabitation, this time with
Edward Balladur as prime minister. But this one
was different from the first one with Chirac.
Much less confrontational. By this point, Midran's
health was failing. He was also deeply affected
by Bera Gavoy's suicide shortly after the election
loss. So he mostly stuck to foreign affairs and
let Balladur run the country until his term ended
in 1995. So, after 14 years, what's the verdict
on his domestic policy? The radical dream died
in 83. What was left? What was left, and this
is what the sources emphasize, was a strong welfare
base underpinned by a strong state. He fundamentally
reoriented the French economy towards Europe,
but he preserved that social safety net. And
what about inequality? It's a mixed picture.
But some major reports from the time showed that
France, unlike the U .S. or the U .K., had actually
managed to contain the rise in income inequality
during that period. He balanced the books, but
he didn't dismantle the welfare state to do it.
OK, let's turn to foreign policy, because this
is where you really see Mitterrand's strategic
mind at work, especially on Europe. Absolutely.
His relationship with the German chancellor,
Helmut Kohl, was the central pillar of his foreign
policy. They built an incredibly strong Franco
-German partnership. And the biggest test of
that partnership came when the Berlin Wall fell.
German reunification. Mitterrand was nervous
about that, wasn't he? Deeply nervous. He was
worried a bigger, more powerful Germany would
dominate Europe and sideline France. So he makes
a deal, a huge strategic bargain. He does. He
tells Kohl essentially, I will support German
reunification, but there is a price. And that
price was Germany giving up its most powerful
symbol of economic strength, the Deutsche Mark.
In exchange for a single European currency. The
euro. Exactly. He used the leverage he had at
that one specific moment to lock Germany into
a much deeper European integration. It was a
brilliant, incredibly high stakes move. And it's
what ultimately paved the way for the Maastricht
Treaty, which created the modern European Union.
Beyond Europe, he also tried to change France's
relationship with its former colonies in Africa.
The Le Bal speech in 1990. Right. This was supposed
to be a turning point. He stood up and said that
from now on, French aid would be linked to democratic
progress, free elections, multi -party systems.
It sounds good on paper. Did it work in practice?
It was. Complicated. A lot of African leaders
weren't happy about it. And it was a massive
contradiction at the heart of his Africa policy,
personified by his own son. You're talking about
Rwanda. I am. Throughout the early 90s, Mitterrand's
government was providing huge amounts of military
and financial support to a Hutu -led government
of Rwanda. Support that was often channeled through
a special Africa cell at the Laze Palace run
by his son, Jean -Christophe. That's right. France
helped train and arm the Rwandan army, which
expanded massively with French help. And after
the 1994 genocide, this support came under intense
scrutiny. It remains one of the darkest chapters
of his foreign policy legacy. And that brings
us to the secrets. The hidden life that Mitterrand
protected with all the power of the state, starting
with his health. He hid his prostate cancer for
almost the entire time he was president, 14 years.
He had his doctor, Claude Gubler, issue fake
health reports to the public. It's an incredible
deception, but it pales in comparison to the
illegal wiretapping. It does. Between 1982 and
1986, Mitterrand set up a special anti -terrorist
cell inside the Elysee Palace. But this cell
operated completely outside the law. No judicial
oversight. Nothing. And they tapped thousands
of phone calls. Over 3 ,000 conversations involving
about 150 people. And while the official reason
was anti -terrorism, the real reason, as a court
later found, was to protect Mitterrand's secrets.
Which were what exactly? Two main things. First,
anything related to his murky past in Vichy.
And second, the existence of his illegitimate
daughter, Mazarin Pinjo. which he had kept hidden
from the public for years. So he was using the
security services as his own private protection
squad. Precisely. They were tapping journalists
who were digging into the Rainbow Warrior affair,
but also writers and others who he feared might
reveal the existence of Mazarin. It was a massive
abuse of power. And did he get away with it?
Not entirely. It took decades. But in 2005, a
court finally ruled on the case. Several members
of the unit were convicted, and the court named
Mitterrand as the inspirator and essentially
the controller of the whole illegal operation.
And we should also briefly mention the Irba scandal.
Yes, a big corruption scandal involving illegal
financing for the Socialist Party. And just as
the investigation was getting close to the top,
what does Mitterrand do? He declares a political
amnesty, effectively shutting the whole thing
down. Another example of him placing himself
and his party above the law. Mitterrand finally
leaves office in 1995. He dies not long after,
in January 1996, from the cancer he'd hidden
for so long. And even in his final days, he was
a figure of defiance and contradiction. That
famous last meal. The Ordholden Buntings. These
tiny protected songbirds. It's illegal to hunt
them, illegal to eat them, and for his last big
meal, he has them served to his closest friends
and family. A final act of defiance against convention.
A final, symbolic breaking of the law. It's so
perfectly Mitterrand. The great lawmaker, the
statesman, choosing to end his life with this
very private, very deliberate transgression.
But his funeral was a huge state affair, a national
day of mourning. It was. Dozens of heads of state
came, representatives from over 170 countries.
It showed the stature he had achieved on the
world stage. So when you look back, how do you
balance the ledger on Mitterrand? It's so difficult.
The achievements are monumental. abolishing the
death penalty, anchoring France and Europe, building
the modern welfare state, consolidating the Socialist
Party. That deal over German reunification and
the euro, that alone shaped the continent for
decades. It did. But then you have the dark side,
the Vichy past, the executions during the Algerian
War. the rainbow warrior, the illegal wiretaps.
We've seen that even after the austerity turn,
he managed to preserve that core idea of a strong
French state with a robust social safety net.
He brought the left to power and kept it there.
He did. So that leaves us with a final question,
really. We've seen this man drag France into
a progressive modern era. But to protect himself,
to protect his past, he used secret police tactics.
He put himself above the law. So when we evaluate
a leader like this, how do we weigh the good
at the historic policy achievements against the
profound ethical and legal failures? And that's
the provocative thought we want to leave you
with. Can profound democratic progress ever truly
excuse a leader's decision to disregard the rule
of law when it gets in the way of their own self
-preservation? The life of Francois Mitterrand
suggests that that might be the most unsettling
political question of all.