France

• 

  Dec 16th, 2019

  The Greens and/or Macron: the fight to hold the centre

  The French Greens versus Macron. Or are they two sides of the same coin? Yes and yes, is the answer, and it's still more complicated than it seems. A look at the battle taking place to take hold of, and possibly change, the central axis of political debate in French society.
• 

  Dec 3rd, 2019

  Macron against the “5th December wall”

  On the 5th of December, the French people went on strike in protest of President Macron’s proposed pension reforms. How did this historic strike, which would sweep millions of people into its fold, come to pass? And how have we reached a point where “9 out of 10 French people believe they are living through a social crisis”?
• 

  Nov 8th, 2019

  An attack on the solidarity-based system

  Social security and solidarity, or private insurance and individualism: this is the choice facing the French people. A look at Macron’s proposed pension reforms – who they would benefit, who they would hurt – from the chief pension negotiator of France’s most important union, the CGT.
• 

  Oct 24th, 2019

  French Republicanism

  The Republic is commonly associated with a political system and its institutions, a historical moment, a set of ideas, symbols and universal values. So what really is it, then? How has its meaning shifted over time, and towards the benefit of whom? And how can the Left fight for a Republic based on values of social justice and liberation?
• 

  Oct 17th, 2019

  Which way off the roundabout

  Left or right? Forward or backward, or into oblivion? The fact of being of the working poor or near-poor describes the yellow vests more than any other, and their direction will be decided by the political projects constructed to include them. A Season in Hell Director Ethan Earle takes a look at where the yellow vests are heading next.
• 

  Oct 9th, 2019

  Introducing a new project

  Nearly 150 years after French poet Arthur Rimbaud’s masterpiece, contemporary France is roiled by its own Season in Hell, a deeply fractured and unsettled political moment in which dark phantasms grow large and the path to a better world is anything but clear. Introducing a new series of political analysis from the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Brussels Office – A Season in Hell: Burning issues in French politics.
• 

  Jun 4th, 2019

  The core of the yellow vest movement rejects the far right

  Quantité Critique (Critical Mass) is a group of sociology lecturers, doctoral students and undergraduates who have been investigating social movements in France since September 2018. For their survey on the ‘gilets jaunes’ (yellow vests) movement, they distributed questionnaires in a number of national Facebook groups linked to the movement ...
• 

  May 24th, 2019

  Ideological divisions in the ‘yellow vest’ movement

  The ongoing mobilisation of yellow vest adherents is arguably the most enduring and significant social movement in France since May 1968. It will doubtlessly have profound political consequences, though toward what end depends on the political direction it takes going forward.
• 

  Nov 26th, 2018

  The Yellow Vests in France

  A car drivers’ uprising, or something deeper? A look at the anti-social ‘climate’ policy of Emmanuel Macron that sparked the largest, most sustained social movement in France in a generation.