Le Pen beats Jospin

jean-christophe helary suzume at mx82.tiki.ne.jp
Sun Apr 21 23:02:06 PDT 2002


my understanding is that jospin will leave his office on may 5, but the parliment is still 'gauche plurielle' and i hardly see any new gvt built as a broad left-right coalition to respect the issue of the presidential result.

there are parlementary elections in two months from now. the left is weakened by the presidential result but not as much as it seems.

it seems to me that at the core of this failure are 2 factors: the campaign discourse was centered on security/delinquency issues and the ps failed to see that focusing on that was working for lepen. the far left is stronger than ever (thanks to groups like attac and their work) and the ps has not been willing to "compromise" with them by focusing on issues that matter like the antiglobalisation mvt, the direction europe is taking etc.

the parlimentary elections are the real focus now. the gauche plurielle gvt has some real popularity and if the campaign manages to focus on the issues that matter chances are that we will have another cohabitation, with eventually more far left deputies.

the left is not at all like it was in 95. it has gained a lot of credibility but this credibility mostly comes from the non governmental part of the left. that the ps was not able to work with them is a major mistake. i am sure we will see interesting results in the summer.

jc helary



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