In France, there was a political catastrophe. Both candidates, representing the country's leading political parties, together received less than 40% of the vote in the first round of the presidential election. Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin lost second place...

IN

France was a political disaster. Both candidates, representing the country's leading political parties, together received less than 40% of the vote in the first round of the presidential election. Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin lost second place to far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. It is with him that Jacques Chirac will have to fight in the second round, whose reputation has also suffered a lot from the outcome of the current vote. This is not the only sensation. It turned out that the political "outcasts" lag behind the political elite by only a few percent. The French lowered the elite and raised the "marginals" so much that it is now difficult to say who is who. The real catastrophe befell the communists. Communist Party leader Robert Yu took one of the last places (3.4%), losing not only to two Trotskyist candidates, but to the representative of the party of hunters and fishermen.

About the Trotskyists - a special conversation. Their total result is more than 11%. If they had managed to agree among themselves, they would have taken fourth place, coming close to Jospin. But the Trotskyists split according to old habit. However, Arlette Laguillet, leader of the Workers' Struggle (Lutte ouvrier) group, received 6% of the vote and came in fifth. And the success of Olivier Besanceno, nominated by the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), is generally fantastic. I saw Olivier in Porto Alegre. This is a guy of 18 years old, whom no one in France knows even as a student leader. In addition, LCR, unlike Lutte ouvrier, has not previously participated in presidential elections. And then 4.5%, ahead of the Communists.

Le Pen's triumph is very relative, in absolute terms he won not so many votes, and the presidency is no more for him than for Zhirinovsky in 1993. But the elections showed that the neo-liberal economic policy, which both parties offer to the population as the only possible one, is disgusting to the French. The outcome of the elections was predetermined by the left voter, who did not go to vote for the socialists. 30% of the population stayed at home. In the end, although the right lost votes, the socialists gained nothing. We must pay tribute to Jospin, he admitted his guilt and announced his retirement from politics.

On the same day as the French elections, voting took place in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. There the Social Democrats suffered the same catastrophe as Jospin in France. But the second place was taken by the Party of Democratic Socialism (the successor of the communists). Now it appears to be the second largest force in the east of Germany.

Apparently, this is only the beginning of major changes in European politics. And not only in politics. For not only party structures are in crisis, but also the entire socio-economic model that has dominated over the past ten years (and is being implanted in Russia). And voting for the radicals is just a symptom of the disease.