First the good news. The Right is not only out of the Elysee Palace but it is on course to have lost control of parliament too. And in its place is probably the most progressive of social democrat parties in Europe today. The Socialists’ programme includes boosting industrial investment, youth employment and teacher numbers, hiking […]
Posts Tagged ‘François Hollande’
Hollande and the French economy (part 1)
May 16th, 2012 by Andy Newman.Enthusiasm for François Hollande’s new government in France is understandable, as it provides a popular mandate for an economic alternative to austerity, and a programme for economic growth. As Trevor Martin exhorts in his recent Tribune article “Let us follow where Hollande leads”. Michael Meacher sketches an outline of what Hollande’s policies would mean translated […]
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Greek exit won’t save euro: fundamental restructuring needed
May 15th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.With the smart money on an early Greek exit, the two main questions to arise are: what will happen to Greece, and what future then for the Eurozone? If Greece leaves, the exchange rate will drop sharply from 340 drachmae to €1 at entry to the euro to perhaps 1,000 drachmae, a loss of value […]
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As Hollande meets Merkel, when will Left in UK take on monetarists?
May 14th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.It is almost incredible that after failure upon failure the monetarists have still not yet been run out of town. Even after the decisive anti-austerity presidential election in France a week ago, the ejection of all austerity-accommodating parties in Greece, and now the drubbing of the German Conservatives in North-Rhine Westphalia, it seems the best […]
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Hollande’s message for Labour: focus on jobs, growth and an end to austerity
May 7th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.There are several important implications in Hollande’s convincing victory over bling-bling Sarkozy. It’s not just the first Socialist presidential win for 31 years, even more significantly it clearly marks a turning point in European politics, though a lot still depends on how forcefully and skilfully this wedge against the dominant Right is used. But the […]
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François Hollande and the strange resurrection of French social democracy
Mar 11th, 2012 by David Osler.Globalisation killed social democracy, and the experience of the Mitterand government in France between 1981-86 was the earliest intimation of the carnage that was to come. Well, that is the accepted wisdom, anyway. My first ever visit to France came shortly after le vichysto-résistant made it to the Palais de l’Élysée. Even though I was […]
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The French goose and the Greek gander
Feb 15th, 2012 by Ann Pettifor.Inside the Eurozone, what’s good for the French democratic Goose it appears, is not necessarily applicable to the Greek democratic gander…. From the Financial Times of 13 February, 2012:
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French presidential primaries: what do they tell us?
Oct 11th, 2011 by Jon Lansman.A turnout of over 2.5 million voters in the French Socialist Party (PSF) presidential primary: more than 5% of the electorate, well over twenty times the membership of the PSF, paying at least €1 to participate and each allowed to cast their vote at one of almost 10,000 polling stations across France. An impressive exercise, there […]
