The show welcomes back guest, Alan Benjamin, an eyewitness to the recent elections in France last week, to discuss what’s going on in France. Will the right wing, Le Pen party, win in the runoff election coming up in a couple of weeks, or will the candidate backed by the French business and political elite, Macron, win? What are progressives and the left doing in response? Who is the progressive candidate, Melenchon, and how he almost made it to the runoff election. Behind the elections are the deteriorating economic conditions in France, as throughout Europe, and a growing attacks on jobs, wages, healthcare services, pensions and other benefits by French business elites. Benjamin explains the anti-worker law and privatizations of healthcare and education behind the election, driving resistance now taking place ‘from below’ that will aggressively reassert itself after the election. Is France headed for another ‘May 1968’ general strike? What are the parallels to conditions and developments in the US today? Jack Rasmus briefly introduces the show with comments on today’s just released US first quarter 2017 GDP figures, showing only a 0.7% growth rate in the US—a forecast predicted by Jack in the January 2, 2017 Alternative Visions show. (Next week show: Trump’s 100 Days record and what it means plus a deep analysis of Trump’s budget and tax cut proposals)
