French capitalism has been underperforming for decades, but its companies still expect to receive generous state support without giving much in return. Emmanuel Macron has carried this policy of corporate welfare to new heights.
After 1945, France produced an extraordinary wave of social theorists whose influence is still felt today. In his final work, Fredric Jameson discussed the excitement of watching this wave rise and fall and the conditions that made it possible.
Removing border checks between many European states, the Schengen Area is often hailed as an internationalist triumph. Yet its creation went hand in hand with the tightening of Europe’s external borders — a contradiction that is hardening today.
French Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel is running for the presidency — and even polling ahead of the long-powerful Socialists. But a campaign heavy on identity also shows that the old workers’ parties are struggling to speak to a changed working class.
On Monday, France joined nine other countries in recognizing Palestinian statehood. But the long delay in making this move is a litany of missed opportunities.
The life of French General Jacques Pâris de Bollardière shows how the strongest voices against war and militarism can come from the military’s own ranks.
Four decades since the passing of Spain's democratic Constitution, the "regime of '78" is sharply criticized by the Left and the Catalan independence movements. Yet former prime minister Felipe González still defends it.
Emmanuel Macron’s strong polling in the French election signals a political realignment destined to consolidate elite control.
NATO leaders from across the political spectrum found common cause opposing Eurocommunism.
Ahead of the 2022 election, French media are presenting an inevitable duel between incumbent Emmanuel Macron and the "populist" Marine Le Pen. Yet for decades we've seen how this liberal framing fuels far-right talking points — echoing Le Pen's false claim to stand for those "left behind" against the status quo.
France’s Socialist Party has announced Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo as its candidate to take back the presidency. Yet far from reconnecting with working-class voters, her candidacy illustrates how France’s established parties have lost their roots.
We need a socialism that goes beyond capitalism. And not just for moral reasons.
French socialist thinker Daniel Guérin lived a life of extraordinary political commitment, from anti-fascist and anti-colonial struggles to his pioneering advocacy of gay liberation. Guérin’s writings and record should be a touchstone for the modern left.
Our impulse should not be to reject social democracy's legacy, but to build on and complete its promise.
Faced with France’s snap elections, the left-wing parties built an alliance in record time. But to defeat Marine Le Pen, sounding the alarm about the far right won’t suffice. The Left will need to offer a positive vision for working-class France.
The National Front hasn't changed. It just learned how to articulate its longstanding racism and xenophobia with mainstream French republican discourse.
Jeremy Corbyn’s call for a break with neoliberalism has given hope to millions. But implementing his agenda will require more than good policies — Labour needs a mobilizing strategy to defeat resistance within the state machine and the City of London.
The defeats for Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn point to the Left’s difficulties in overcoming old party machines. Bottom-up labor organizing may sound like an attractive alternative — but it shouldn’t ignore the power of left populism in uniting people outside the workplace.
In Sunday’s mayoral elections, a united slate of left-wingers and Greens is set to win France’s second-largest city for the first time in decades. Faced with this challenge, the conservative establishment has radicalized, accusing the broad left of planning a "Cuban-style putsch" on the streets of Marseille.
In a wide-ranging interview, novelist Rachel Kushner, author of Creation Lake, discusses the aftermath of the revolutionary ’60s, the allure and brutality of American individualism, and why liberals long for naively romantic depictions of radical politics.