France

Alain Krivine, 1941-2022

Alain Krivine died on 12 March 2022 at the age of 80. He was maybe the first Trotskyist since Trotsky himself to be a "household name", at least in France

Omicron and the anti-vax swirl

David Kurten, leader of the right-wing Heritage Party, on 22 January anti-vax demonstration Several thousands joined an anti-vax protest in London on 22 January. Another protest, in Washington DC on 23 January, was also thousands. Streets were blocked in Bolivia on 21 January. 70,000 marched across Germany on 18 January. France has had regular weekend anti-vax protests for many months, often totalling 100,000 marchers across the country. Many hundreds marched in Manchester on 22 January and stormed the Arndale shopping centre. Steve Chapman reports from Sheffield on 22 January: “Around 250...

Covid: “the moon is not a hamster”

As the Harvard University scientist Bill Hanage tweeted in early January: “Omicron is not endemic [settled into being a worrisome but manageable background factor] right now in much the same way that the moon is not a hamster”. On 12 January Chicago teachers returned to in-person work, after a week in which they had insisted on a temporary online model in response to an Omicron surge, but the city had barred them from logging in. With the USA’s vax rate lower than Europe’s, Covid death rates in Illinois in mid-January 2022 are comparable to the early 2020 peak and to all but the very worst of...

The French left in hard times

On 23 January sign-ups close for the "Popular Primary" for left candidates for the French presidential election, for which the first round will be 10 April. Two individuals - one a sometime Green activist, one an "entrepreneur" who had launched and run an NGO aimed at improving understanding and cooperation between people of different backgrounds - set up "Popular Primary" in February 2021. Raising funds online, they now employ 18 full-time-equivalent staff and (as of 17 January) have 250,000 people signed up and making a token payment to take part in the online "primary" on 27-30 January. In...

Édouard Taubé, 1939-2021

Édouard Taubé, who was known as Mody and who wrote under the pen name Gil Lannou, left us on 13 November last, after suffering two strokes in a single week.

The Dreyfus-deniers of the French far right

The Dreyfus Affair, which began in 1894, is a cause célèbre that refuses to go away. The framing of Captain Alfred Dreyfus on espionage charges split public opinion in France into pro and anti Dreyfusard camps. What gave the case added resonance and placed it high on the list of historic miscarriages of justice was the overwhelming stench of anti semitism surrounding the entire episode. France was recovering from the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71) and the German annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. Ultra-nationalists in particular were out for revanche (revenge) against Germany to win back the...

New evidence on Catholic Church and child abuse

A new report has exposed the scale of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in France. Written by an independent commission led by a former judge, the report estimated that at least 3,000 priests (around 3% of the country’s total) had abused minors, with around 216,000 children thought to have been victimised. France itself has been reckoning with the issue of abuse in the Catholic Church for over twenty years, since Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux was convicted in a civil court of covering up for an abusive. Since then there has been a slow build-up of pressure as new cases came to light, abuse...

Turn back Patel, not the boats

France’s right-wing government, whose leader Emmanuel Macron has called for Europe to “protect itself from waves of Afghan immigration”, has opposed Priti Patel’s plans to forcibly turn back migrant boats in the Channel as incompatible with “safeguarding human lives”. The MP for Calais, from the even more right-wing Les Republicains, calls it a violation of human rights “that should not be tolerated in a modern society”. Of course right-wing French politicians do not want more migrants kept in France. Still, the Tories are putting themselves in the vanguard of European anti-migrant politics...

Kino Eye: School rebellion

The school students’ rebellion at the Pimlico Academy (see Solidarity 587 ) brings to mind the classic anti-school film Zero de Conduite (Zero for Conduct), made in France and directed by Jean Vigo back in 1933. Returning to their dreary boarding school after the holidays, four students become increasingly angered by the petty discipline, appalling food, and bullying, obnoxious Headmaster. They stage a protest and the Parents’ Open Day ends in total chaos while the boys make their escape over the rooftops. Vigo went on to direct only one more film, L’Atalante (1934), a romantic tale of workers...

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