[1][2] It is the first presidential election in French history that an incumbent president actively seeking reelection was denied a second term.

If Giscard's internal political handicaps had effectively "crippled" him in the initial race, the external factors that decided the 1981 election were a deadly blow.

Neatly summarized in an article by Hugh Dauncey: "It was Giscard's double misfortune that his presidency should be blighted both by unprecedented economic difficulties, and by a political system which was stubbornly unreceptive to the ouverture and centralist compromise that he required for his reforms to fully succeed".

The division within the right between the two main factions, Giscard's Union pour la démocratie française (UDF) and Chirac's neo-Gaullist Rassemblement pour la République (RPR), proved to be the final blow to Giscard (Painton, par.

As author Penniman points out, in a shrewd move, the left gained "strength through disunity".