As Prime Minister, Mollet passed some significant domestic reforms and worked for European integration, proposing the Franco-British Union.

Released after seven months, he joined the French Resistance, where he was a captain,[1] in the Arras area and was three times arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo.

During the 1956 legislative campaign, Mollet created a centre-left coalition, the Republican Front, containing the Radical Party of Pierre Mendès-France, the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance of François Mitterrand and the Social Gaullists of Jacques Chaban-Delmas.

Gaston Defferre's loi-cadre of 23 June 1956 generalised universal suffrage throughout the territories d'outre-mer and based their assemblies on a single voting roll.

[2] The government established the BEPTOM (Bureau d'études des postes et télécommunications d'outre-mer) to support communications in the newly independent former colonies.

[3] Despite those successes, Mollet, who wanted to concentrate on domestic issues, found himself confronted with several major foreign policy crises.

[4] The Anglophile Mollet and British Prime Minister Anthony Eden shared a mutual concern for maintaining their overseas possessions.

In October 1956 Mollet, Eden and the prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, met and colluded, in the Protocol of Sèvres, in a joint attack of Egypt.

[9] He poured French troops into Algeria, where they conducted a campaign of counterterrorism, including torture, particularly during the Battle of Algiers (January to October 1957).

The Secretary of State to Foreign Affairs, Alain Savary, also a SFIO member, resigned because of his opposition to Mollet's hardline stance in Algeria.

[citation needed] Mollet's cabinet carried out a programme of progressive social reform, which was almost unnoticed because of both the international context and the Algerian War.

Substantial improvements were made in welfare provision for the sick and elderly, funding for regional aid and housing was increased[10] veterans' payments were extended[11] and a third week of paid holidays was introduced.

Mollet's government passed other pieces of social legislation during its time in office, including an increase in wages and improved medical benefits.

[16] Sales tax on essential commodities was abolished[17] while regional differences in minimum wage standards across France were reduced.

Mollet supported de Gaulle on the grounds that France needed a new constitution to allow the formation of strong governments.

[citation needed] During the 1965 presidential campaign, he presented himself again as the guardian of Socialist identity, opposing the candidacy of Gaston Defferre, who proposed the constitution of a "Great Federation" with the non-Gaullist centre-right.

Mollet supported François Mitterrand's candidacy and participated in the centre-left coalition Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left, which would split three years later.

In French political language, the word molletisme equates to duplicity, making left-wing speeches to win elections and then implementing a conservative policy.