Presidential elections were held in France on 26 April 1981, with a second round on 10 May. François Mitterrand defeated incumbent president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing to become the first Socialist president of the Fifth Republic. It is the first presidential election in French history that an incumbent president actively seeking reelection was denied a second term.

François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was a French politician who served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, the longest holder of that position in the history of France. As a former Socialist Party First Secretary, he was the first left-wing politician to assume the presidency under the Fifth Republic.