
François Mitterrand
Actor · 1916 – 1996 · Jarnac, Charente, France
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (26 October 1916 – 8 January 1996) was a French politician and statesman who served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, the longest holder of that position in the history of France. As a former Socialist Party First Secretary, he was the first left-wing politician to assume the presidency under the Fifth Republic. Due to family influences, Mitterrand started his political life on the Catholic nationalist right. He served under the Vichy regime during its earlier years. Subsequently, he joined the Resistance, moved to the left, and held ministerial office several times under the Fourth Republic. Mitterrand opposed Charles de Gaulle's establishment of the Fifth Republic. Although at times a politically isolated figure, he outmanoeuvred rivals to become the left's standard bearer in the 1965 and 1974 presidential elections, before being elected president in the 1981 presidential election. He was re-elected in 1988 and remained in office until 1995. Mitterrand invited the Communist Party into his first government, which was a controversial decision at the time. However, the Communists were boxed in as junior partners and, rather than taking advantage, saw their support eroded, eventually leaving the cabinet in 1984. Early in his first term, Mitterrand followed a radical left-wing economic agenda, including nationalisation of key firms and the introduction of the 39-hour work week. He likewise pushed a progressive agenda with reforms such as the abolition of the death penalty, and the end of a government monopoly in radio and television broadcasting. He was also a strong promoter of French culture and implemented a range of "Grands Projets". However, faced with economic tensions, he soon abandoned his nationalization programme, in favour of austerity and market liberalization policies. In 1985, he was faced with a major controversy after ordering the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace vessel docked in Auckland. Later in 1991, he became the first French President to appoint a female prime minister, Édith Cresson. During his presidency, Mitterrand was twice forced by the loss of a parliamentary majority into "cohabitation governments" with conservative cabinets led, respectively, by Jacques Chirac (1986–1988), and Édouard Balladur (1993–1995). Mitterrand’s foreign and defence policies built on those of his Gaullist predecessors, except in regard to their reluctance to support European integration, which he reversed. His partnership with German chancellor Helmut Kohl advanced European integration via the Maastricht Treaty, and he accepted German reunification. Less than eight months after leaving office, he died from the prostate cancer he had successfully concealed for most of his presidency. Beyond making the French Left electable, Mitterrand presided over the rise of the Socialist Party to dominance of the left, and the decline of the once-dominant Communist Party. ... Source: Article "François Mitterrand" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Movies20
Movie7.5RomanceDramaHow did Sarah and Victor get along for more than 45 years? Who was this enigmatic woman living in the shadow of her husband? Love, ambition, betrayals and secrets feed the story of this extraordinary couple, as they experience both the large and small moments of the last century's history.
Mr & Mme Adelman
2017 · 470 votes
Movie6.5DocumentaryThe extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles
2014 · 37 votes
Movie6.5DocumentaryHistoryFrom the first minutes after his inauguration, the newly elected president wants to translate his promises and his campaign project into action. "Change is now", "Change life", "Together everything becomes possible": all campaign slogans promising a break with the past, a change. The first few months were decisive: it was a matter of making a mark, asserting one's style, imposing one's authority and taking the first measures, those that would make a mark on public opinion and set the first lines of the political narrative in history. From 1959 to 2017, the eight successive presidents have acted without delay. Thanks to the many witnesses and actors of these first hundred days, the film retraces the stakes and decisive moments that marked the beginning of each mandate.
Cent jours
2022 · 2 votes
Movie10.0DocumentaryHistoryA historical perspective to understand Neoliberalism and to understand why this ideology today so profoundly influences the choices of our governments and our lives.
Laissez-faire
2015 · 1 votes
Movie7.2HistoryDocumentaryIn May 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became President of the Republic and wanted to bring about a new era of modernity. One of his first decisions was to break up the ORTF with the creation of three new television channels: TF1, Antenne 2 and FR3. Three new public channels but autonomous and competing. It is a race for the audience which is engaged then, and from now on the channels will make the war! This competition will give birth to a real golden age for television programs, with variety shows in the forefront. The stars of the song are going to invade the living rooms of the French for their biggest pleasure. This unedited documentary tells the story of the metamorphosis of this television of the early 1970s, between freedom of tone, scandals, political intrigues and programs that have become mythical.
La TV des 70's : Quand Giscard était président
2022 · 5 votes
Movie8.0DocumentaryHistoryA journey through Greece and Europe’s past and recent history: from the Second World War to the current crisis. It is a historical documentary, a look into many stories. «If Democracy can be destroyed in Greece, it can be destroyed throughout Europe» Paul Craig Roberts
Laboratory Greece
2019 · 3 votes
Movie7.0DocumentaryThe co-founder of the Gamma press agency, Raymond Depardon, created this documentary of press photographers in Paris and their subjects by following the photographers around for one month, in October, 1980. In-between long hours waiting for a celebrity to emerge from a restaurant or a hotel, boredom immediately switches to fast action as the cameras click and roll when the person appears. The reaction to the gaggle of photographers is as varied as the people they often literally chase all around town. While some of the celebrities, such as Jacques Chirac who was mayor of Paris at the time, are perceived as comical caricatures, others are shown simply going about ordinary pursuits - including Catherine Deneuve, Gene Kelly, and Jean-Luc Godard.
Reporters
1981 · 10 votes
Movie6.9DocumentaryThis documentary examines the life and work of the late fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent, recounting how a frail prodigy prone to bouts of depression became an icon of the fashion world. Initially appointed head of the House of Dior in 1957 before growing into a globally recognized designer in his own right, Saint-Laurent overcomes his struggles with substance abuse, accumulating a large art collection alongside his lifelong personal and professional partner, Pierre Bergé.
L'Amour fou
2010 · 35 votes
Movie6.9DocumentaryCommissioned by the journal Présence Africaine, this short documentary examines how African art is devalued and alienated through colonial and museum contexts. Beginning with the question of why African works are confined to ethnographic displays while Greek or Egyptian art is celebrated, the film became a landmark of anti-colonial cinema and was banned in France for eight years.
Movie6.7DocumentaryGuy Debord's analysis of a consumer society.
Movie6.0DocumentaryHours and historical meetings, Pierre Assouline has composed an anthology of the best extracts presented in the form of a primer, which he had commented on by a surprised Bernard Pivot.
Les vendredis d'Apostrophes
2015 · 1 votes
Movie6.5DocumentaryTV MovieA captivating portrait of French actor Michel Piccoli, who has worked with the greatest filmmakers of his time and has built a dazzling career of remarkable merit and success, focusing on his work during the 1970s and his professional relationship with Claude Sautet, Romy Schneider, Marco Ferreri and Luis Buñuel.
Movie6.3DocumentaryHistoryIn the 1960s, the suburbs were meant to be modern havens for newcomers from rural France, Portugal, Spain, North Africa, and Africa, helping rebuild post-war France. Large housing complexes symbolized this ideal, offering comfort, heating, and electricity. But by the 1980s, disillusionment set in as economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, crime, racism, and police violence took hold. Mohamed Bouhafsi tells the story of a dream that didn’t last.
La banlieue, c’est le paradis
2025 · 3 votes
Movie8.0DocumentaryTV MovieOn October 4, 2018, France celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Fifth Republic. It is a republic born in the throes of the Algerian War and one which—from the day it was founded by General de Gaulle until the presidency of a very Jupiterian Emmanuel Macron—has been assailed as a “Republican monarchy” by partisans of a more assertive parliamentarian state. By revisiting the struggle of those who dared oppose the new regime — only to suffer a crushing defeat on September 28, 1958, when they were barely able to garner 20% of the vote against the constitutional text — this film shines a powerful new light on the origins of the Fifth Republic and its consequences for the next 60 years. It is a constitutional debate that planted the seeds for a complete upheaval of the French political landscape, on the left in particular, and set the country in motion toward what would be called the Union of the Left.
Movie6.0DocumentaryTV MovieIn the summer of 1963, François Mitterrand was going through a deep existential crisis. His political career was at a standstill and, after 19 years of marriage, the couple had grown apart. It was at this point that François Mitterrand met the woman who was to give new meaning to his life. Anne Pingeot, aged 19, was to become the companion of a lifetime, a woman who would be with him throughout his rise to power and who would remain by his side until his last breath. For the first time, Anne Pingeot has agreed to allow the fragments of this passionate love story — hundreds of letters and a diary — to be shown on television, before being donated to the National Library.
François Mitterrand et Anne Pingeot, fragments d'une passion amoureuse
François Mitterrand & Anne Pingeot: Pieces of a Love Story
2021 · 6 votes
Movie7.0DocumentaryHistoryCharles de Gaulle, the first president (1958-1969) of the Vth Republic, France’s current system of government, left his mark on the country . He was statesman of action and has been compared to a monarch. This film depicts the general’s personality through the great events of his presidential term, at a time when the world was undergoing considerable changes.
MovieDocumentaryHistory“I am the last of the great Presidents. After me, there will be no more ..." said François Mitterrand at the end of his life. What legacy left the first socialist president of the Fifth Republic? Documentary filmmaker Bertrand Delais and a host of French intellectuals such as Laurent Fabius, Hubert Védrine, Julien Dray, Dominique Bertinotti, Jean-Pierre Chevènement and Bruno Roger-Petit take a look into what that means.
Movie6.6DocumentaryFollowing the 1974 French presidential campaign with Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
1974, une partie de campagne
2002 · 20 votes
Movie9.0DocumentaryTV MovieDe Gaulle, le géant aux pieds d'argile
2012 · 1 votes
MovieDocumentary
Series13
TV3.6Talk ShowVivement dimanche
1998 · 9 votes
TV8.5Talk ShowApostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bernard Pivot. It ran for fifteen years (724 episodes) from January 10, 1975, to June 22, 1990, and was one of the most watched shows on French television (around 6 million regular viewers). It was broadcast on Friday nights on the channel France 2 (which was called "Antenne 2" from 1975 to 1992). The hourlong show was devoted to books, authors and literature. The format varied between one-on-one interviews with a single author and open discussions between four or five authors.
Apostrophes
1975 · 4 votes
TV8.0Talk ShowNewsLe Grand Échiquier is a French variety television program created and presented by Jacques Chancel. It aired at 8:30 pm on the first channel of the ORTF from January 12, 1972 to July 12, 1972, then on the second color channel of the ORTF from September 1972 to December 1974, and finally on Antenne 2 from January 1975 to December 21, 1989. The program returned to France 2 on December 20, 2018 and is hosted by Anne-Sophie Lapix.
Le Grand Échiquier
1972 · 3 votes
TV6.2Documentary30 millions d'amis
1976 · 3 votes
TV6.5DocumentarySoapIl était une fois Champs-Élysées
2022 · 5 votes
- TVTalk Show
TV5.4DocumentaryThe show tries to decipher the life of a public figure.
Un jour, un destin
2007 · 5 votes
TV8.8DocumentaryFeaturing revealing interviews with survivors speaking publicly for the first time, alongside rare insight into the CIA and Soviet responses, this series exposes a web of secrecy, miscalculation, and human cost. Astonishing new footage from inside the nuclear exclusion zone reveals how this scarred landscape is once again under siege as war encroaches on one of the most dangerous places on Earth.
Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown
2026 · 4 votes
TV7.0DocumentaryWar & PoliticsNorth Africa, 1954. The Algerian war of independence begins, a traumatic and extremely violent catastrophe that for eight long years will shake and finally overthrow the foundations of the colonial regime established by France in 1830.
TV10.0DocumentaryThe behind-the-scenes story of French television… This documentary unveils the lesser-known history of two audiovisual decades that have shaped today's television. To explain from the break up of the French broadcasting service ORTF, in 1974, to the creation of Arte, via the birth of Canal+, the life and death of La Cinq and the privatization of TF1 — the succession of political, economic and cultural decisions that have shaped what is known as the “PAF” (French Audiovisual Landscape).
Télévision (histoires secrètes)
1996 · 1 votes
TV7.0DocumentaryIronic portrait of the strong men of the Chilean military dictatorship commanded by General Augusto Pinochet after September 11, 1973. As a counterpoint, the families of the victims and the missing bear witness to a different reality.
Chili Impressions
1978 · 1 votes
TV7.0DocumentaryAt the end of his presidency, Francois Mitterrand is interviewed by Jean-Pierre Elkabbach to reflect on his legacy
François Mitterrand : Conversations avec un Président
2001 · 1 votes
TV7.0Documentary3 decades told via the careers of emblematic designers, combining major historical events with minor happenings, anecdotes with fate and fortune, and pop nuggets with collective drama. The collection looks back over 3 decades of fashion (from 1980 to date), from the carefree emergence of the star-designer of the 1980s, to the arrival on the market of the major luxury groups and the toughening-up of the system.
Fashion !
2012 · 1 votes