In 1981, in uneasy alliance with the Communists and amidst a storm of revolutionary rhetoric, the French Socialist party came to power for the first time since the founding of the Fifth Republic. The only full-length study of the subject yet written, this book looks at the realities beyond the rhetoric—how the Left came to power, what the Socialists achieved in the way of social change, where they failed to diverge from policies associated with the Right, and what lasting impact their brief tenure is likely to have on French and European politics.