List of Tables and Exhibits - Preface - Notes on the Contributors - Change and Continuity in the Mitterrand Years; D.Hanley - Campaigning for the 1995 Presidential Election; H.Machin - The Institutional Logics of Presidential Elections; R.Elgie - Candidates and Parties of the Right; P.Fysh - Candidates and Parties of the Left; S.Griggs - Themes, Issues and Policies; S.Mazey - Voting Behaviour; A.Guyomarch -The French Presidency: The Changing Public Policy Environment; V.Wright & R.Elgie - Appendix 1: Presidential Election Results, 1965-95 - Appendix 2: The 1995 French Presidential Election: A Chronology of Main Events - Appendix 3: 1995 Results - Bibliography - Index

This study of the 1995 French presidential election explains why Jacques Chirac was elected the fifth President of the Fifth French Republic; it also places Chirac's election in the context of some of the more longstanding issues and debates in contemporary French politics, examining the Fifth Republic's institutional structures, the behaviour of its political parties, the attitudes of its citizens and the nature of its governance.