David Broder is Jacobin’s Europe editor and a historian of French and Italian communism.
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire became a campus sensation because it offered a master theory for globalization at a moment when old Marxist categories seemed exhausted. But the capitalist internationalism they saw as permanent has now crashed and burned.
Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán combined talk of defending Hungary’s traditions with a promise of prosperity. When he stopped delivering workers good economic news, culture-war messaging wasn’t enough to save him.
Through more than three years in power, Italian premier Giorgia Meloni has often seemed to have an electoral magic touch. Her defeat in a judicial-reform referendum today tells us she still can’t rewrite the country's constitution at will.
Last year’s elections saw a resurgence for Germany’s socialist party Die Linke. In an interview, coleader Ines Schwerdtner explains how the party is seeking to expand beyond current left-wing voters to reach broader parts of the working class.
In Britain, Thursday’s Gorton and Denton by-election was a historic victory for the Greens. Labour prime minister Keir Starmer chased the Left out of his party, and he is now seeing its voter base collapse.
The Trump administration is determined to finally crush Cuba, through concerted actions to cut off its fuel supply. Resisting Donald Trump’s imperialism, the Nuestra América solidarity convoy is mobilizing to provide direct aid to the Cuban people.
In the 1970s, the Italian Communist Party was again on the rise in Tuscany. Then it all toppled over.
One of France’s leading socialists, Jean Jaurès was assassinated just days before the outbreak of World War I. An impassioned defender of working-class internationalism, his murder signaled Europe’s descent into war.
Italian Fascists honed their ideology in Venezia Giulia, fusing anti-Slavic racism with anti-communist repression.
Keir Starmer’s British government has formally recognized a state of Palestine. But he still needs to take some basic steps to start treating Palestinians as human beings.
France’s neoliberal government is expected to lose a confidence vote on Monday. For its opponents, the aim isn’t just to topple the current cabinet but to kill off President Emmanuel Macron’s whole austerity agenda.
This summer, European states hiked military spending and swallowed a poor trade deal in order to win favor with Donald Trump. Yet the US president’s negotiations with Vladimir Putin all but ignored their proposals.
The new party announced by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana shows that Gaza has become a key fault line in British politics. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party can no longer rely on silencing the Left.
French right-wingers don’t yet have a leader like Donald Trump. Yet the creation of Fox News–like TV channels, harsh culture wars, and the decline of class politics are pushing France along a path troublingly similar to the United States.
The activists aboard the Madleen aid ship couldn’t break the siege of Gaza. But Greta Thunberg and her colleagues have powerfully drawn attention to Israel’s blockade — and the West’s refusal to do anything about it.
Spain’s deputy premier Yolanda Díaz has enacted landmark reforms to strengthen workers’ rights. In an interview, she tells Jacobin that “there’s no more powerful force than the workers of the world.”
Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for office for five years. The sentence applies the law as written, but it turns her embezzlement conviction into a propaganda coup for her party.
A new conservative environmentalism that blends anti-modernism with nationalism and austerity is spreading across Europe.
On Sunday, Germany voted in a federal election that saw massive growth in support for the far-right AfD, resurgence of the socialist Die Linke party, and more losses of working-class votes for the Social Democrats. These ten graphs explain what happened.
At his life’s end, Jean-Marie Le Pen had been expelled from the party that he helped found. Yet this Holocaust denier and former torturer left behind an important legacy: making the far right into a major force in French political life.