France

By Paul Kellogg

Jean-Luc Melenchon.

[Read more on French politics HERE.]

By Murray Smith

August 2, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The Left Front (Front de Gauche) emerged onto the political scene at the beginning of 2009. As the Left Front to Change Europe, it was established by three organisations -- the French Communist Party (PCF), the Left Party (PG, Parti de Gauche) and the Unitary Left (GU) -- with the aim of standing in the European elections of June 2009.

Francois Hollande.

By Murray Smith

A young supporter of the Front de Gauche (Left Front).

May 15, 2012 – Tariq Ali's keynote lecture on the state of Europe presented at the annual

Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

By Dick Nichols

April 30, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly -- The results of April 22 first round of the presidential elections in France directed a powerful spotlight on a society polarised by  economic crisis and the austerity regime of President Nicolas Sarkozy and his ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP)  government.

As in the 2002 presidential poll, candidates to the left of the Socialist Party (SP), including Europe Ecology-The Greens (EELV), won more than 15% of the vote, while the xenophobic National Front (FN) of Marine Le Pen registered its highest vote ever—17.9% (up 7.5% from the 2007 presidential poll).

However, unlike the 2002 contest, this far-left vote did not come at the expense of the SP (which in 2002 was beaten into third place by the FN). This time the SP’s François Hollande took first place, with 28.6% of the vote (up 2.8% from 2007).

On March 18, the 141st anniversary of the Paris Commune, organisers were expecting 20,000 to 30,000 to show u

By Socialist Resistance (Britain)

Pierre Bourdieu.

By Dimitris Fasfalis

February 3, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Ten years after his death, Pierre Bourdieu’s work and commitments are commemorated throughout the world by friends and foes alike. Le Monde, for instance, described him as a “classic thinker”: second-most quoted author of the academic world after Michel Foucault.

Academia thus recognises Bourdieu as a major sociologist of the 20th century whose concepts (habitus, fields, types of capital, symbolic violence) have become pillars of the social sciences. Few voices, however, have reclaimed Bourdieu’s radical legacy, while his work is of great interest for all those committed to emancipation.[1]

Marine Le Pen, daughter of the racist founder of the National Front in France, Jean Marie Le Pe