The French politician and statesman François Mitterrand (1916-1996) served in different governments under the Fourth Republic (1946-1958) and became a major opponent of Charles de Gaulle under the Fifth Republic beginning in 1958. In 1981 he was elected president of France and served for 14 years--longer than any other head of state in the five Republics since the Revolution of 1789.

François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was born into a middle-class Catholic family on October 26, 1916, in Jarnac, a small town in southwestern France near Cognac. During his childhood Mitterrand was influenced by his parents' concern for the plight of the poor. In 1934 he traveled to Paris where he entered the University of Paris and pursued degrees in political science and law. The rise of European fascism in the 1930s during his university years attracted Mitterand to attend demonstrations organized by the pro-fascists in 1935 and 1936. After obtaining his degree...