France in the 1980s was marked by the political change of having a socialist president and socialist government for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic. Coming to office in May 1981, François Mitterrand and his governments were faced with economic challenges they inherited from the mid- and late 1970s, when inflation, unemployment and a generally uncompetitive economy threatened to definitively end the economic success story that France had enjoyed since 1945. As the Trente glorieuses were replaced by what commonly became known as the Vingt rugueuses (‘twenty years of rough times’), socioeconomically France was under pressure from inflation, unemployment, public sector austerity and, increasingly, industrial and commercial rivalry with emerging international competitors. As well as being too apt to import Far Eastern consumer electronics and, indeed, Taiwanese bicycles and Japanese cycle components, France also remained open to the importing and adoption of sporting and recreational practices from the United States. We have seen earlier how, especially post-1945, it was the US, more than the UK, which was France's significant Anglo-American ‘other’, and alongside sports such as rollerblading and skateboarding, the 1980s saw a considerable uptake in mountain-biking in France. The Tour de France during the late 1970s and early 1980s was the scene of French domination, in the persons of national hero Bernard Hinault (winner in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1985) and Laurent Fignon (double champion in 1983 and 1984), before, significantly, they were dethroned by the US rider Greg Le Mond (1986, 1989, 1990). However, even their accomplishments pale in comparison with those of a much less well-known French cyclist, the multiple Olympic, world and national champion Jeannie Longo. Longo was also a key figure in the women's Tour de France which was first run in 1984.

We shall start this chapter with an analysis of how the French cycle industry was being forced to adapt to new realities of consumerism, foreign competition and evolving tastes for bicycles among the French cycling public. We shall see how the French state's concern – expressed by socialist governments from the early 1980s – to improve French competitiveness through fostering high technology also found resonance within the cycle industry, in coexistence with other more traditional and still enduring techniques of bicycle design.