The French radical Left today in its European context
The main aim of Professor Dave Hanley’s lecture was to discuss the current position of the France’s left wing parties and provide a brief background on some of the main parties such as the French Communist Party and the Green party. The lecture had no clear argument but instead gave a balanced view on the French political left and its development. Professor Hanley began his lecture with a general review of how left wing politics are defined and what values are central the leftist view. The next part of the lecture was more specific to the French case, Professor Hanley explained the recent phases of left wing being in power, from 1981-1995, 1997-2002 and finally Francois Hollande’ s left wing government which came in to power earlier this year. The relationship between the radical left and the moderate left was then discussed and Hanely made the point that one of the key areas that the two groups are divided is over participation in Europe as the more radical left is highly sceptical and not willing to compromise. Professor Hanely also mentioned the issue of the Greens or “Les Verts” within the French left, explaining that since the success of the party in the Euro Elections under Cécile Duflot the socialists had to co-operate with the Greens but that there was still much mistrust between the parties. Professor Hanley concluded his lecture by questioning the future of the French left wing, asking whether Hollande would be able to survive another election and if not, where would disillusioned socialist voters turn to?
During the question section which followed, it was asked whether Professor Hanley believed that the far left is euro sceptic, the general consensus was that the left is fairly euro-sceptic, to the point that they campaign as if it didn’t actually exist. However the point was also made that Syriza, the Greek left wing party were fairly pro-Europe just not the austerity measures that were proposed by the EU. Another question asked was, why the radical right had been traditionally more successful than the radical left? It was suggested that the radical right is more united and coherent than the radical left and uses nationalist rhetoric to a great effect in order to unite people. Finally it was debated whether the EU is becoming more left wing or not. It was considered that, following in the wake of Hollande’s election, both Angela Merkel and David Cameron might struggle to be re-elected. An article by Nile Gardiner (2012) on the Telegraph website comes to a similar conclusion, believing that if Angela Merkel were to loose in the German 2013 elections the balance of power within the EU will shift dramatically to the left.
I really enjoyed this lecture, I found it interesting as I had previously attended a lecture on the Extreme Right within Europe. It is notable that during this time of economic crisis voters of Europe are turning increasingly to either end of political scale, in search of a more radical change.
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Written by Emily Adsett
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