High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Socialist Party (Parti socialiste, PS) is the largest left-wing political party in France. It replaced the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) in 1969. A social democratic and democratic socialist party, PS first won power in 1981, when its candidate François Mitterrand was elected president of the Fifth Republic. Under Mitterrand, the party achieved a governing majority in the National Assembly from 1981 to 1986 and again from 1988 to 1993. PS leader Lionel Jospin lost his bid to succeed Mitterrand as president in the 1995 presidential election against Gaullist leader Jacques Chirac but became prime minister in a cohabitation government after the 1997 parliamentary elections, a position he held until 2002, when he was again defeated in presidential elections.