French reaction to Greek 'no' in bailout referendum

ManyMany on the Left in France greeted with pleasure the news that the 'no' camp in the Greek referendum on the latest European bailout deal won a clear majority. With the 'no' stance adopted by prime minister Alexis Tsipras winning around 60% of the vote, the socialist president of France's National Assembly, Claude Bartolone, immediately called for negotiations between Athens and its institutional creditors to resume “from tomorrow” - and under new terms.

Bartolone, who is known to be unhappy with the budgetary orthodoxies demanded by German chancellor Angela Merkel, said: “The efforts demanded by the Troika from the Greek economy through tax and social reforms must be amended.” Bartolone also publicly questioned the “worrying” way the European Union was handling the crisis and the “feverishness” of its institutions.

As the first exit polls came in from Greece it was also announced that French president François Hollande would host Merkel at the Elysée for talks and a working dinner on Monday evening to discuss the outcome of the Greek referendum. It will be regarded as a key meeting in determining the response of EU member states to the result, all the more so given that Paris and Berlin have shown differences in their approach to the crisis in recent days. President Hollande had made it clear that he wanted talks to continue with Athens ahead of Sunday's vote, while Merkel insisted negotiations had to wait for the outcome. Both leaders will now be keen to show a united front in the face of the decisive Greek result, and have already agreed to call an emergency summit of Eurozone leaders for Tuesday, the day after their own talks.

It also emerged that President Hollande was one of the first European leaders that Alexis Tsipras spoke to on the telephone as the scale of the no vote became clear.

Hollande is already under pressure from the left of the Socialist Party (PS) to pursue a much more conciliatory line with the Greek government than Germany has shown. The socialist came into office in May 2012 pledging to end Europe's emphasis on austerity, a promise he is widely seen as having failed to deliver on. Instead it has been the Syriza government in Greece that has stood up to European budgetary rigour. In a Tweet on Sunday night the former minister for the economy Arnaud Montebourg, an outspoken critic of the Hollande government of which he was a member, greeted the outcome in Athens with a pointed reference to the Greeks' lone battle on the issue: “Homage to the Greek people for knowing how to defend not just their interests but also the interests of all Europeans.”

The socialist MP Pouria Amirshahi, one of the main rebels in the PS, meanwhile said the result showed that a “new wind” was “blowing through Europe”. He added: “It is now time that the president of the Republic chooses a path: the one expected by the French people who put him in office in 2012.”

The idea that the Greek vote could change European politics was echoed by the leader of the Poblemos movement in Spain, Pablo Iglesias, who Tweeted: “Today in Greece, democracy won”.

However the philosopher and journalist Bernard-Henri Levy was not so sure who the victor was. “The real question: who has won? The Greek people, really? Or a demagogue who has used his people and, alas, will use them again?”

Later in the evening the French Socialist Party reacted to the result with a statement from first secretary Jean-Christophe Cambadélis. “This evening the Greek people have expressed themselves by renewing their message of opposition to austerity, as they had already done in the previous vote [editor's note, the election of the Syriza government],” said Cambadélis, who is himself of Greek origin. He said the vote by the Greek people showed that they wanted “an agreement which gives them a chance to start again, to open the way to lasting and reliable growth and to get out of the spiral of debt”.

The 'no' vote was not a rejection of Europe, said the party leader, but a no “to the austerity which has reduced Greece's GDP and thrown many citizens into precariousness”. He said the PS now wanted to see the resumption of negotiations that would allow Greece to honours its immediate commitments. But Cambadélis also said he wanted talks to “build a global support plan for Greece, based on a viable and lasting compromise which would give the country the time and means to rebuild itself”. Dealing with Greece's overall debt burden would be an “indispensable” part of those talks, he added.

In Paris itself the radical left Parti de Gauche held an impromptu gathering of solidarity with the Greek people at the place de la République (see photo below), attended by around 2,000 people, including senior figure Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

The French delegation of the Party of European Socialists (PSE) also called for a rapid return to negotiations and criticised those who “want to humiliate Greece in seeking to exclude it from the euro”. The delegation demanded an end to the tactic of “last chance” meetings by Eurogroup countries which it said had become a “mutual trap” for both Greece and the European Union. “The tone has to be changed and we must stop pitting the peoples of Europe against each other,” the delegation said.

However, in the centre and on the Right of French politics there was a more sombre reaction to the Greek vote. Philippe Vigier, an MP for the New Centre party, warned that “the victory for 'no' in Greece is leading Europe towards a serious crisis. She is a victim of her political inertia and of national populism”. A senior figure in Nicolas Sarkozy's Les Républicains party (formerly the UMP), Valérie Debord, linked the vote to the money that the Greek government owes France. “We could ask the French people in a referendum if they agree to each of them giving 1,128 euros to Greece … Let's be serious.” Another senior figure, the mayor and MP for Nice Christian Estrosi, said: “The French cannot continue to pay the debts of a country that doesn't reform itself!”. The vice-president of Les Républicains, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, adopted a similar theme. “France must not reach any agreement that is not accompanied by something in return. François Hollande has no mandate to impose on the French people new tax pressures spread out over decades to satisfy the caprices of Mr Tsipras.” She said any new concessions that were signed had to be approved by the French Parliament.

Writing in the The News York Times, though, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman warmly welcomed the Greek verdict. “...we have just witnessed Greece stand up to a truly vile campaign of bullying and intimidation, an attempt to scare the Greek public, not just into accepting creditor demands, but into getting rid of their government. It was a shameful moment in modern European history...” He concluded: “And if Greece ends up exiting the euro? There’s actually a pretty good case for Grexit now — and in any case, democracy matters more than any currency arrangement.”

On the nationalist Right there was jubilation at the Greek result. Marine Le Pen, president of the far-right Front National, described the outcome as a “No of freedom, of rebellion faced with European diktats that want to impose the single currency at any cost, via the most inhumane and counter-productive austerity”. Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, president of the right-wing Gaullist party Debout la France, said: “This evening Debout la France celebrates the victory of the dignified and brave Greek people with joy and pride … Democracy has won. It has won against the terror of the pseudo-experts, against the Vichy spirit that reigns in Brussels, Paris and Berlin”.

However, in common with many on the Left, Green MEP Eva Joly insisted that the vote was not aimed at Europe itself. “Defying the pressures from supporters of budgetary orthodoxy, the Greek people have said no to austerity and to dogmatism, not to Europe,” she wrote.