After 1981, the RPR opposed with energy the policy of the Socialist Party President François Mitterrand and the left-wing governments. The RPR denounced the plan of nationalizations as the setting up of a "collectivist society". Impressed by the electoral success of New Right conservatives led by Ronald Reagan in the United States of America and by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, it gradually abandoned the Gaullist doctrine, claiming less control of the state in the economy. During its 1983 congress, it advocated a liberal economic programme and the pursuit of the European construction, accepting the supranationality.