Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 23:21:19 -0500 From: Elisabeth Vincentelli <teppaz at panix.com>
A small correction: When I was talking about "the Communists," I was indeed referring only to the PCF, the French Communist Party. In my experience, that's who the French mainstream media refers to when they talk about *the Communists." But the resurgence of Lutte Ouvriere, for instance, may change all that.
A good friend of my brother's was elected as a council member in Paris' 17th district, on a communist-leaning list. She isn't in any party but she acquired her political experience in a feminist group, Mix-Cite. To me she completely embodies the rise of a left that did not come up through party or union rank but through what they call "the para-left." A lot of these groups were created in or after 1995, something I find really inspiring. I don't think people in the US realize the long-lasting influence the events of that year had on the French political life. And maybe the French socialist party didn't fully realize it either until these elections.
Elisabeth