Mali
West African coups: Just changing masters
Europe's 'lefts' and the capitalist crisis
Front de Gauche (France) leader Jean-Luc Melenchon with SYRIZA (Greece) leader Alexis Tspiras.
For more on the developments on Europe's far left, click HERE (see also the pink tabs and the end of the article)
By Francois Sabado
May 20, 2013 -- International Viewpoint -- The situation of the "lefts" in Europe cannot be understood without starting from the crisis, its multiple dimensions and its effects on the social and political field. Hitting head-on all the organisations and parties linked to the history of the workers’ movement, precipitating ruptures, it obliges political forces to recompose around new axes.
France: As Hollande takes the social-liberal road, what prospects for the left?
France's Socialist Party President Francois Hollande with the Left Front's Jean-Luc Melenchon.
French troops in Mali ‘for the long haul’; left responds to war
French troops in Mali.
[Click HERE for more on Mali.]
By Roger Annis
February 6, 2013 – A Socialist in Canada, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission -- ”France is in Mali for the long haul.” That’s the headline of the France daily Le Monde on February 4. The newspaper’s front page, as well as pages 2 and 3, were devoted to a discussion over "what next" for France and the world in Mali.
The views of the newspaper’s editors are explained in a front page editorial. (The editorial translated into English is below.) Describing in the politest of terms France’s historic role in Africa as a slave and colonial power, and summarising the political situation in Mali and west Africa as a “struggle against narco-Islamists”, the newspaper argues for a long-term, Haiti-style tutelage of Mali.
France launches war in Mali to secure resources, stamp out national rights struggles
"The military attack in Mali has been condemned by groups on the political left in France, including the Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (New Anti-Capital