How the French Left is Winning
Europe’s Crisis Is Only Just Beginning | Aaron Bastani Meets Jean-Luc Mélenchon
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Europe’s Crisis Is Only Just Beginning | Aaron Bastani Meets Jean-Luc Mélenchon
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Mélenchon makes plenty of good points. But in truth, he’s become a divisive figure on the French Left, partly owing to his frequent tirades against other personalities on the Left, and his sacking of dissidents within LFI. The success of the New Popular Front in the 2024 legislative elections was greatly helped by him not standing in those elections, which allowed others, such as Marine Tondelier from the Greens, to step into the limelight and make a major impact. There is a real danger in the coming presidential elections that the Left fails to pick a unity candidate who can gather the support required to defeat the far right. It’s a shame, because as this interview shows, there’s better stuff to remember him by than his ego.
All very well to note that traditional Marxist analysis neglected the free social work of women, but where is the correction to add in the even more vital value provided by Nature (as long as our natural world is healthy)?
I’m not sure why the early questions were on the UK and USA rather than France.
Mélenchon gets on to the non-human living world later with reflections on lack of silence, the overlit night, but the point should be that capitalism is not only suicidal, it is ecocidal. The replacing-bees-with-drones and plastic bag examples are well made. But necessary green transition should not just be, or even primarily, for human benefit.
There were recent reports that a French law allowing farmers to again use once-banned bee-killing chemicals was uniting much of the country in opposition: https://www.france24.com/en/france/20250721-can-a-french-citizen-s-petition-reverse-the-reintroduction-of-a-banned-pesticide
Mélenchon may be right about commons although the air and water aren’t just for humans, of course, and there is much digital, technologic and scientific communism already that he seems not to acknowledge. Ending on a good-life philosophical theme seems wise if your project is to build consensus but not ideological conformity.