>Why do you argue that the French left is so weak-- the
>Greens/Socialist/Communists are running parliament; it was just strategic
>idiocy and complacency that let them assume that they could all run their
>token Presidential candidates, then support Jospin in the runoff.
Quite.
In the name of leftism they could not even manage the parliamentarism efficiently by doing voters analysis.
One of the most significant things about Pen's vicotry is that the left was all shocked. They had no idea it was going to happen!
How incompetent. It is not just idiocy. They are not seriously in the class battle for state power. It is more important for them that they skirmish about which Trotskyist tendency has got a few more percentage of the votes.
"the correct tactics in propaganda is not to entice away a few individuals and memberships here and there from one's opponents but to work on the great mass which still remains inactive." Engels to Bebel 20 Jun 1873
What is the point in playing at left wing bourgeois politics if you do not intend to win, and win for the working people?
There is no doubt that New Labour/Neue Mitte has its problems about rallying passionate support but at least they do their homework.
An obvious implication of Jospin's resignation is that he should clear the ground for some New Labour type of thinking in the French Socialist Party.
Chris Burford