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Author
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Topic: France: Bastille Day
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Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
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posted 14 July 2008 07:13 PM
French lessons for the North American left? quote:
Today is Bastille Day in France, a national holiday that marks a key event of the French Revolution. It's the perfect time, especially in this year marking the 40th anniversary of les événements – France’s most recent near-revolution – in the summer of ’68, to look across the Atlantic for some political inspiration for North America’s beleaguered political Left. In contrast to the “race to the centre” that passes for electoral politics in the United States and for the most part in Canada, in a number of European countries the Left has found new ways to organize and speak out in its own name. In France, in particular, this voice has found an audience. Improbably, Olivier Besancenot, a 34-year-old radical socialist postal worker, now tops the popularity polls amongst all opposition politicians in France. The spokesperson of the far Left has even become a regular in the mainstream media, and his profile is generating interest in his organization’s project to build a “new anti-capitalist party.” You can now turn on the TV or pick up a daily newspaper and you will find Besancenot, who denounces capitalism in no uncertain terms and proposes a radical participatory project for defeating neo-liberalism.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
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