1981 in France
overview of France-related events during the year of 1981
Events from the year 1981 in France.
Incumbents
President: Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (until 21 May), François Mitterrand (starting 21 May)
Prime Minister: Raymond Barre (until 21 May), Pierre Mauroy (starting 21 May)
Events
24 April – French presidential election: A first-round runoff results between Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterrand.
10 May – Presidential Election won by François Mitterrand.
21 May – François Mitterrand becomes the first socialist President of the French Fifth Republic.
14 June – Legislative Election held.
21 June – Legislative Election held.
September – Launch of the Renault 9, a small-four door family saloon with front-wheel drive which falls into the Renault range between the R14 and R18 model ranges. It will share a floorpan with a new hatchback model to replace the R14 from early 1983.
18 September – France abolishes capital punishment, four years after its final execution.
27 September – TGV high speed rail service between Paris and Lyon begins.
The public source identifies “1981 in France” as overview of France-related events during the year of 1981. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around France, overview and France-related.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2812805. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1981 and 1983.
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This entry incorporates text from “1981 in France” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.