Pierre Mauroy was a big man in every sense of the word, a statesman as well as a politician. He achieved what the left in the past had failed to do: he was able to govern. Besides his governments' social measures, he was instrumental in 1984 in France's political switch to a non-isolationist economic policy.
Back in 1971 he had recognised that Mitterrand was a key to the left's future. He backed him at the congress at Epinay, despite Mitterrand's alliance with the then powerful communists (the better to swallow them, as it turned out). But in 1979, as he later confessed, he was wrong at the Metz congress to ally himself with Rocard to block Mitterrand, as the PS's first secretary – and future presidential candidate.
Mauroy emerged as prime minister with the left's victory in 1981: he was a socialist baron. But behind the scenes there had long been affinities. Mitterrand told Mauroy in 1975 that it needed only 100 people like them to bring about the left's victory. They never lost touch. In 1993 the ailing Mitterrand told his political comrade who had consistently struggled to keep social justice to the fore: "Go on putting blue into the sky."