Paradox of Balladur's legacy: 'Highly popular' Gaullist elite yet 'too far away from the people'

Sharon Gaffney is pleased to welcome Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer at Lancaster University. According to Foucart, Édouard Balladur’s political legacy mattered because he embodied a political model that was innovative and yet limited in scope and longevity. As PM under Socialist President François Mitterrand, Balladur helped demonstrate that ideological rivals could govern together under cohabitation while pursuing an ambitious programme of privatisation and economic reform. Yet Foucart argues that Balladur’s ultimately unsuccessful presidential campaign exposed a deeper transformation in French politics: technocratic competence, elite stature and institutional authority were becoming less electorally powerful than the ability to connect with ordinary voters.