Born in 1916, in a small town in the Cognac region of southwest France, Mitterrand inherited all the attitudes of the minor bourgeoisie. A practicing Roman Catholic from a large family, he adopted the conservative politics of his parents and the easygoing lifestyle of his region. As a law student in Paris just before World War II he joined a fascist student group. After joining the army, being captured by the Germans and escaping, he returned to Vichy, where he became a middle-level official and won the regime’s highest civilian distinction.
Mitterrand performed the first of his many dramatic turnarounds in 1943: he joined the Resistance. After the war he held several junior ministries, and gradually moved to the political left. In 1981, running with the support of the communists, he was elected president of the French Republic. Conservatives feared a march toward Marxism French style, and Mitterrand’s rhetoric encouraged those fears. But he soon abandoned most of his Socialist promises, left economics to others, and concentrated on foreign policy.
Like most Frenchmen of his generation, Mitterrand nourished a certain distrust and resentment of America, but in crises, he was able to see past his prejudices. He helped Reagan by pleading with German legislators to allow nuclear missiles on their territory; he unhesitatingly joined Bush’s coalition against Iraq. He also overcame his discomfort with the idea of European Union and became one of its most passionate proponents, cultivating a close personal friendship with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Known to his countrymen as “the Florentine” because of his endless maneuverings and mendacity, or as “God” for his perceived distance and arrogance, he finally earned what was to be his last nickname: “Uncle.” In his second term, he acted less as an imperious leader, more as an avuncular presence brooding over France’s future. He dreamed of leaving his mark on the Paris skyline, and succeeded. A dozen major monuments bear his imprint: some masterworks, like the refurbished Louvre; others, horrors like the huge Arch of Freedom at the city’s west end.
Mitterrand yearned for a gentler, simpler France–a France of roasted chestnuts and slowly simmered stews. His essays and speeches celebrated the beauties of his native landscape. He was French to his fingertips–in his romanticism and his corrosive cynicism, in his national pride and, finally, in the stoicism and courage with which he faced death. In his final months, he tied up the loose ends of his life: admitting his role in Vichy; publicly acknowledging an illegitimate daughter. He wrote and talked, lucidly and with feeling, about oncoming death. “We learn only when it is too late,” he told a friend, “that the marvel is the passing moment.” And when death came, the French mourned him with more emotion, more love, than most who had watched his long and serpentine career could ever have imagined possible.
