Franch News

I was asked three more questions, when I sent in the article you can find posted a few days back. Here they are. 1) What is the role of the Front de Gauche? What is the party's class base? The Front de Gauche had a real existence from 2009 to 2012, as an alliance between the Communist Party, the Left Party and a couple of anticapitalist groupings who had left the New Anticapitalist Party, complaining of its sectarian policy. It then became less and less relevant. The main reason was that the Communist Party’s tactics in local and regional elections, where they were often in alliance « for pragmatic reasons » with the Socialist Party, were not supported by the other groupings inside the Front de Gauche. The Front de Gauche, which had had a potential to become something more dynamic and grassroots, eventually proved itself to be just a fading electoral tactic. Mélenchon, standing in the 2012 presidential election as the Left Front candidate, had however obtained 4 million votes....

What is France Insoumise and where it it going? FI supporters on a recent demonstration As a massive wave of strikes continues in France, what forces might propose a mass political alternative to Macron? The France Insoumise, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is being discussed by anticapitalists across Europe: but what is it, how does it work and what is its potential? John Mullen, a marxist supporter of FI, gives his view. La France Insoumise (France in Revolt) is a radical Left movement founded in 2016. Its roots lie in the same anger which led to the rise of Podemos in Spain or of Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, but its particularities come from the specific history of the French Left. Unlike Podemos, its most well-known leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has been in politics for many years (previously a senator elected on a Socialist Party ticket). Unlike Corbynism, this new movement did not rise up inside the structures of an established social-democratic party. Boosted by a series of impressive mas...