Only four
years old, the Left Party was born after its leading figure, Jean-Luc
Melenchon, a long-time leader of left currents in the Socialist Party (PS),
abandoned it after the tendencies in the PS opposing neoliberal austerity
mustered only 19% support at its 2008 congress.
Above: March 6 press conference by Jean-Luc Mélenchon (Front de Gauche, Left
Front) on the death of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez Frias.
l’Humanité interview with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, spokesperson Front de Gauche (Left Front), France, translated by Dick Nichols
March 7, 2013 -- You have always supported the revolutionary process in the Venezuela, why?
We need to place the Bolivarian Revolution in its continental and historical context. The collapse of state communism was presented to the whole world as the end of history for communist and socialist sentiment and aspiration. But the flame flared up again in South America because the new age of capitalism had made that continent its proving ground. Neoliberalism was tried out there by military dictatorships on the one hand and by Operation Condor and CIA acts of violence on the other. The policies which then got applied were the same everywhere: free and unbridled competition, monetarism and deregulation, leading the whole continent to disaster. It is in this context that the revolutionary flame flared up again. Bolivarian Venezuela has occupied a special place: not only has been it been built on democratic foundations, but it has outmaneuvered the criminal plans of the opponent by peaceful and popular action.
The party’s rapid early growth seemed to confirm the
premise on which it was founded — tens of thousands of France's workers and
young people wanted to get active against capitalism’s crises and crimes, but were
wary of existing left organisations and looking for a new sort of political
home.
"The military
attack in Mali has been
condemned by groups on the political left in France, including the Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (New Anti-Capital
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.