The Left in Europe: What Does the Future Hold?

By Pierre Moscovici
French Socialist MP
Social Europe
21/01/2011

I am glad and honoured to talk today about the Left in Europe, and what is left of it. I would like to thank the French Socialist party in London, the Fabian Society and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung for organizing this event. Before answering questions you may have about the current French political landscape, I would like to outline the perspectives and situations of Europe’s mainstream and Reformist Left parties, although I will at times discuss other forces of the Left, such as the communists and the ecologists (or greens).

This overview starts with a preliminary observation. There is clearly a paradox of European socialism. In the economic turmoil the world is currently undergoing, all the components for an ideological, and also a political domination of the Left are in place.

After the conservative wave of the 1980s epitomized by ‘Reagonomics’ and Thatcherism, after the unlimited ‘financialization’ of the last decade (in which the free market increasingly dominated international economics and national policies), after the winning period of the Blairite ‘Third Way’ in Britain, and even after Lionel Jospin’s reformism in France (to which I contributed as a Minister for European Affairs), new political realities and needs are emerging. A return to Keynesianism is needed but with new perspectives. According to many analysts, the time has come for a widespread rejection of the absolute rule of the market, for financial regulation and for a return of state interventionism. In other words, the time has come for the renewed momentum of the Social Democrats.

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