Mitterrand's avuncular fourteen-year presidency was well calculated and a hard act to follow, but general unease demanded a change of direction.

 

Lionel Jospin , the uncharismatic former education minister, performed remarkably well in the election, topping the poll in the first round - in which right-wing votes were split between Balladur, Chirac, the extreme-right Le Pen and the anti-European Philippe de Villiers. In the second round run-off, Chirac stole the Left's clothes by placing unemployment and social exclusion at the top of the political agenda, and heaped promises of better times on every section of the electorate. He won, by a small margin, and was inaugurated as the new president of France in May 1995.