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Stathis Kouvelakis is an independent researcher in political theory. A member of Syriza's central committee from 2012–15, he was a candidate for MeRA25-Alliance for Rupture in the May 2023 Greek general election.
Greece’s general election handed a huge victory to the conservative New Democracy, as Syriza shed one-third of its support. With Alexis Tsipras’s party crushing any hope of an alternative to austerity, voters reached for right-wingers promising stability.
The campaign for Greece’s election this Sunday has been mostly uninspiring, with little hope of an end to austerity. With Syriza’s capitulation in 2015 still weighing heavily, the radical left faces an uphill struggle to overcome the mood of despair.
Syriza’s surrender to the troika in 2015 continues to hang over Greece’s radical left. With general elections coming this spring, it needs to break out of its impasse — and create a real alternative to the country’s permanent austerity regime.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing coalition is neck and neck with Emmanuel Macron’s party in polls for today’s French parliamentary elections. The coalition’s victory would shake the neoliberal order in France and across the European Union.
In Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise, two-thirds backed either abstention or spoiled ballots in the presidential runoff. Emmanuel Macron’s record of slashing welfare and repressing protests has hobbled his call for a vote to stop the far right.
French media is saturated with the fascist pundit Éric Zemmour and his absurd, racist talk of a “great replacement” of France’s white population by immigrants. Now, he’s weighing a bid for the presidency — and his talking points are already dominating the debate.
Ten years ago, Greece was gripped by square occupations expressing mass opposition to EU austerity policies. The movement’s strength was its ability to rally Greeks from outside the organized left — yet it was ultimately defeated by its lack of a clear political alternative.
Today marks 150 years since the start of the Bloody Week, when the French army drowned the Paris Commune in blood. For Karl Marx, the Paris revolution was the greatest working-class uprising in his lifetime — and a model for what socialism might look like.
December 17 will see the biggest strikes yet against Emmanuel Macron’s assault on pensions. But with the neoliberal president well aware that this battle will define his presidency, defeating him will take more than single days of action.
France was paralyzed by strikes on Friday, as workers from train drivers to teachers revolted against Emmanuel Macron’s attack on pensions. While the liberal president fancies himself as a French “Thatcher,” his bid to tear up France’s welfare state now faces its most powerful opposition yet.
Setbacks for Syriza have prompted Alexis Tsipras to call an early general election. Yet as a onetime left-wing government reaches the end of the road, the bases for rebuilding the fight against austerity look weaker than ever.
In 2015 the international left invested its hopes in Syriza and its promise of a break with austerity. Today, it must call out the repression of social movements in Greece by Alexis Tsipras’s government.
Alexis Tsipras’s government promised to end austerity. Now it’s defending the banks against people evicted from their homes — and persecuting those who protest.
While nationalists agitate over the Macedonia naming dispute, the Macedonian left is seeking alliances with progressive forces in the region.
The naming dispute between Macedonia and Greece sounds trivial to outside observers, but it’s fueling right-wing nationalism in both countries.
A Greek leftist on why British socialists shouldn’t shy away from rejecting the European Union.
France’s Nuit Debout movement has the potential to not just defeat a single law, but to move beyond defensive struggles.
Syriza’s capitulation to the troika has made the plight of refugees even worse.
Stathis Kouvelakis on Syriza’s record in office, the mood in Greece, and why Alexis Tsipras should’ve stepped down months ago.