1988 French legislative election

Common card · No. 378875

Legislative elections were held in France on 5 and 12 June 1988, to elect the ninth National Assembly of the Fifth Republic, one month after the re-election of François Mitterrand as President of France. In 1986, the Socialist Party (PS) of President Mitterrand lost the legislative election. For the first time under the Fifth Republic, the President was forced to "cohabit" with a hostile parliamentary majority and cabinet. He chose the RPR leader Jacques Chirac as prime minister. The two heads of the executive power were rivals for the 1988 presidential election. Inspired by the example of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Chirac campaigned on an aggressively right-wing set of policies (including privatisations, abolition of the solidarity tax on wealth and tightening restrictions on immigration) but he was faced with significant opposition in French society. For his part, Mitterrand presented himself as the protector of national unity. He campaigned for a "united France" and warned...

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