No subject

serves as his headquarters, the 34-year-old Trotskyist postman plans to 
exploit the economic crisis to overturn capitalism, bringing down President 
Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right government on the way.

"There is a torrent of industrial disputes and social protests," he says. 
"But they all remain separate from each other. What we need to do is bring 
all this together in one massive movement of dissent."

To many outside observers, Mr Besancenot's words may sound like a throwback 
to France's revolutionary tradition and to its enduring fixation with 
Marxism.

But his vow to bring about a "new May '68" will set alarm bells ringing in 
Paris, where the political establishment is deeply marked by the events of 
40 years ago when students protests combined with the biggest general strike 
in decades.

Centre-right governments were forced to retreat by big protests movements in 
1995 and 2005. Mr Sarkozy is anxious to avoid such a fate. He has shelved an 
education reform that triggered widespread protests among high school 
students.

The strike on Thursday, if widely followed, could mark the beginning of a 
broad-based anti-government movement.

The government is already concerned by signs of radicalisation. SUD, a 
hardline union movement with links to Mr Besancenot, caused chaos for 
Parisian commuters during a month of industrial action, including a new 
weapon - the 59-minute strike.

Next month Mr Besancenot will launch the New Anticapitalist party, an 
attempt to corral the fractious extreme left into a single movement.

"We are going to reinvent and re-establish the anticapitalist project," he 
says. "We want to stick back together all of the radical elements of the 
workers' movement, something that has proved impossible for more than 20 
years because of historical and personal differences."

But Mr Besancenot is no shadowy agitator. Equally at ease on a Sunday 
evening television chatshow as at a rally of revolutionary communists, he is 
one of the most popular opposition politicians and is often regarded as the 
most effective adversary of Mr Sarkozy.

With his neat, Tintin looks and mild-mannered eloquence, Mr Besancenot has 
become the acceptable, even attractive face of French extremist politics. 
Opinion polls suggest as many as 10 per cent of voters would back him in a 
presidential election.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

_____________

We'll see how things shake out, starting in a couple of minutes over here. 
Certain RER (commuter rail lines) won't be running-- others, by agreement 
will.

______________

Second thing:  Looking for more info on the overtures Nestor says were made 
to Lula from the Obama administration-- so far can't find anything in the 
NYT, the WSJ.  Can anyone provide any more info on this?

----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Nestor Gorojovsky" <nmgoro at gmail.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 4:01 PM
Subject: [Marxism] O, Wilderness! was [Re: On Walter's expulsion (a 
criticism and self-criticism)]


If S. Artesian understood a dram of what is going on in the world he
lives in, he would have noticed that the FIRST political move in Latin
America by Obama has been to attempt to rip the Mercosur by cajoling Lula.

rthlink.net