The Left in Europe - Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung

issues the party shares the social-liberal platform of the European Socialist
Party.
The Left Party
France
Even before the last phase of the SP party congress in November 2008
Senators Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marc Dolez decided to take their group
out of the PS and found a new autonomous Left Party, the “Parti de
Gauche”. In 2005 Mélenchon had been one of the key actors within the SP
to reject the Constitution Treaty.
In view of the crisis of capitalism and the failure of social democracy in
Europe they saw the need for a new party that would be “firmly anchored
in the left-wing camp” and represent “democratic and republican values
without concessions to the Right”.
Their first public meeting, at which Oskar Lafontaine spoke, was attended
by 3,000 people. By early 2009 the Parti de Gauche had about 7,000
members and sympathizers, including many former adherents of the PS
who felt let down by the course adopted by that party. The PdG also contains
representatives of civil rights groups and communists. The party’s
strategy is described by Mélenchon as “revolution through elections”. The
creation of a new political Left front made up of various parties is intended
to facilitate left-wing majorities for a change of policy. It is clear that no
political force in France in favour of such a project could accept its own
dissolution, i.e. the parties that see themselves as part of this front against
Sarkozy’s neo-liberal policy are to retain their party-political identity. This
includes the PCF, which is ready to play the role of a privileged partner in
setting up such a political front in preparation for European elections. Together
with Besancenot’s New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) this front could
at present corral about 15 percent of the votes, although this is currently
rejected by the NPA.
What is remarkable is that this new party-political project draws directly
on the experience of the emergence of the DIE LINKE (The Left) party in
Germany, which it is trying to re-enact innovatively in a French context.
That is to say, it is a question of perceiving possibilities and windows of
opportunity for change, of breaking up old structures, and creating a leftwing
“holding party” in order to build up a new party-political project similar
to the former WASG in Germany. In the long term the idea is to develop
a further-reaching left alliance to achieve left-wing majorities for political
change, which – according to Mélenchon – are not possible in France without
the Socialist Party. So far, however, the SP has been bringing its poli-
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