Thousands of people protested in Paris on Saturday calling for a change in the austerity policies of President Francois Hollande. The Front de Gauche, whose principle components are the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Parti de Gaunche, led the demonstration that declared “Hollande, enough!” and rallied “against austerity” and for “equality and the redistribution of […]
Hungary swings right
Apr 8th, 2014 by Tom Gill.Translated by Tom Gill, from the original by Marco Santopadre The parliamentary elections in Hungary on Sunday confirmed a trend already evident in recent years – a right wing government that maintains its position of dominance and a growing neo-Nazi opposition. The election also saw an increase in voter turnout, by four percentage points, reaching […]
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How PM Matteo Renzi’s ‘Jobs Act’ will sink Italy
Apr 6th, 2014 by Tom Gill.Italy’s new PM, Matteo Renzi, has pledged to slash the country’s record unemployment with his American-branded ‘Jobs Act’. But his labour reforms, which will see short term job contracts extended for up to 3 years, are more of the same medicine applied since the turn of the 1990s that have been such bad news for […]
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Fast Facts: Gender social inequality and austerity in Europe
Mar 11th, 2014 by Tom Gill.Europe’s austerity fetish and longer term neo-liberal reforms promoted by Big Business, Governments and the EU Commission hurt women disproportionately. Here’s a few facts to illustrate the point. Europe wide The gender pay gap is around 16% It ranges from more than a quarter (27%) in Estonia to around a fiftieth (2%) in Slovenia. The latest figures […]
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What’s behind the anti-immigrant vote in Switzerland?
Feb 13th, 2014 by Tom Gill.Translated by Tom Gill from the original in l’Humanité Since the Swiss / EU agreement on the free movement of people, a sense of unease has been growing in Switzerland, fuelled by the crisis and exacerbated by the demagoguery of the extreme nationalist right. The success of the anti-immigration initiative of the far-right Swiss People’s […]
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Europe’s debt – a con-trick binding the people to banks
Jan 10th, 2014 by Tom Gill.This article was translated by Tom Gill based on the original in Italian at Il Fatto Quotidiano by Loretta Napoleoni. From this year Italians have a 45 billion-euro–a-year bill to pay under the EU Fiscal Compact, a budgetary straightjacket binding Rome to 20 years of economically and socially lethal spending cuts and tax rises. It’s time to […]
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On President Hollande’s New Year bomb
Jan 7th, 2014 by Tom Gill.Translated by Tom Gill from the original in l’Humanité by Patrick Apel -Muller François Hollande’s New Year message did not mark a political turning point, which came just a few months after his election, but it expressed his right turn without any attempt at camoflauge. Priority is to be given to the demands of big business, […]
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Spain in 2014: Not a Prosperous New Year
Jan 4th, 2014 by Tom Gill.Translated by Tom Gill from the original by Esther Vivas We have entered 2014 a little poorer. For those of us with a job, our salaries have been frozen, or even cut; only a few can expect a rise in the New Year. Furthermore, the price of electricity, public transport and water are increasing. 2013 […]
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Is it all over for Silvio?
Oct 6th, 2013 by Tom Gill.Is it all over for Silvio? This question has been asked repeatedly over the past twenty years since the billionaire media magnate entered Italian politics. Today the answer has never looked more like a Yes. On Wednesday the former prime minister was forced into a humiliating u-turn as plans to topple the government by withdrawing his party’s […]
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Germany: Why the Left numerical majority isn’t a political majority
Sep 28th, 2013 by Tom Gill.Il Manifesto newspaper interviews Sahra Wagenknecht, deputy leader of Die Linke, on why Merkel did so well in the elections, the failure of the SPD and the prospects of unity on the Left. For Sahra Wagenknecht, deputy leader of Die Linke (‘The Left’), there is no doubt: the weakness of the Social Democratic challenger was […]
