'The French people showed the way,' SYRIZA-PA leader Kasselakis says
Commenting on the results of the French elections, main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Stefanos Kasselakis express confidence that the progressive forces in Greece can follow France's example and set aside their differences, in a social media post late on Sunday.
"Today, the French people showed the way," Kasselakis said, noting that French voters had "stood up against the monster of the far right and discredited neoliberalism, with a popular front imposed by society to oppose hatred and backwardness."
With their historic victory, he added, the progressive forces of France had succeeded in expressing the desires of the average French citizen and, in spite of serious differences between them, had agreed on a set of basic measures for addressing the rising cost of living and the housing crisis, for protecting workers and pensioners and resolving the Palestinian problem.
"In this way, they managed to prevail against the agenda of intolerance, anti-europeanism and isolationism of the far right," he said.
Comparing this to the situation in Greece, Kasselakis noted that "they also showed that we must sit down in order to agree on finding solutions to the big problems that Greeks face today, such as high prices, the housing crisis, the destruction of the national health system, the failure of the rule of law."
Concluding, he said: "I am confident that we can set aside our various differences. Today the French people are 'screaming'. Hope and change are not a utopia but a reality. Let us hear them and let us not disappoint them in practice from now on."