 For the observers and the French Socialists themselves, the Epinay Congress was the real founding act of the current PS.It was also the turning point in Mitterrand's grand political plan, which led to the ascendancy of the French Left over the next quarter-century, and eventually, in 1981, to Mitterrand's election to the Presidency of France for two consecutive 7-year terms.After the catastrophic results of the 1968 legislative election and of the 1969 presidential election, the secretary general of the French Section of the Workers' International (socialist party, SFIO) Guy Mollet resigned.