In April 1984 President Mitterrand gave a press conference unlike any that had previously been held under the Fifth Republic. He did not sit at a sombre bureau Louis XV decorated with red, white and blue flowers. He was not playing the part of the professor from the Sorbonne, as de Gaulle had so often done, lecturing his audience on the history of France. Even less was he the informal, friendly, pullover-wearing head of state whom Giscard d'Estaing had once sought to be. The site was the gardens of the Elysée Palace. The President strode in, mounted a platform and stood at a lecturn, with the national flag flying behind him. He had ceased to be Monsieur le Président. He had become Mr President.

LRB 21 April 1988 | PDF Download