French President Francois Hollande's failure to honour election promises on jobs has brought inevitably poor results in Sunday's first round of municipal elections.
His Socialist Party administration's adherence to orthodox neoliberal policies gave victory to the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and some gains to the racist National Front (FN).
Most striking was the FN's outright triumph in former mining town Henin-Beaumont in the Pas-de-Calais department, where its candidate Steeve Briois took 50.26 per cent of the vote and won the mayoralty.
CJ ATKINS commemorates one of the most dramatic moments in working-class history
Far-right forces are rising across Latin America and the Caribbean, armed with a common agenda of anti-communism, the culture war, and neoliberal economics, writes VIJAY PRASHAD
Communist Party presidential candidate JEANNETTE JARA challenges the Chilean left to stop talking only among comrades and reach out to angry voters abandoned by politics in the race against the far right this November



