The postman who wants to deliver the end of capitalism

[IndianaGreen]

The postman who wants to deliver the end of capitalism

By John Lichfield in Paris

Wednesday, 4 February 2009

Olivier Besancenot, the French far-left politician who is rapidly becoming an icon, has perfect working-class credentials as a postman

He has the cheerful, inoffensive look of the ageing star of a boy-band. He wants to destroy the institutions of the French state but cultivates, brilliantly, the image of a concerned, plain-talking, working-class boy-next-door. He has become the second most popular political figure in France, after President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The baby-faced postman and Trotskyist idol of the young, Olivier Besancenot, 34, will launch this weekend something which has been, until now, a contradiction in terms: a mass-appeal, far-left party. The Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) is dead. Long live the Nouveau Parti Anti-Capitaliste (NPA).

The party, which plans to build a non-capitalist state and is looking, first of all, for a catchier name, will be founded during a three-day conference starting on Friday at Saint Denis, just north of Paris. With the world's financial system in crisis and with bankers universally loathed, with the working class restless and the French parties of the centre-left rudderless and divided, there could hardly be a better time to launch a radical new movement of the left.

M. Besancenot's old party, despite its workerist rhetoric, was mostly middle-aged and middle class. The new party to be born this weekend will be younger and will include some working-class, trade union activists but will be dominated by the "lost" generations of French middle-class youth who reject middle-class ideas – extreme ecologists, feminists and anti-globalists, people who are fiercely in favour of illegal immigrants or fiercely opposed to advertising.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-postman-who-wants-to-deliver-the-end-of-capitalism-1545015.html

[provis99]

1. why the heck can't we have working class politicians in this country?

No offense to middle-aged rich lawyer white guys out there, but I'm tired of voting for middle-aged rich lawyer white guys almost all the time. I want to see more blue collar types run; why can't union leaders at least run for office more?

[IndianaGreen]

3. I like Besancenot's idea of nationalizing the banks and getting rid of market economy

In America, the Left sold out to the Democrats, and what did it get for it? Judd Gregg at Commerce with a GOP replacement in the Senate. No support for single payer from Obama Administration, instead inviting Big Pharma and Big Insurers to give us more of the same. This is not the sort of deal making we envisioned when we voted for Obama in November.

[Confusious]

4. Its hard to say he sold out

When you only have two places to sell yourself. One left, one right.

He never said he was a leftie, he was a democrat. He wasn't going to go anywhere near where you wanted. You just read that into him. Hes a center-left type of guy.

I would like a sharp left turn in this country, but with the way things are ( Our system. Two parties. ), thats never going to happen. So I vote whoever is closer, and he was.

Did I sell out also?

[leftstreet]

2. Interesting article!

Thanks for posting.