“Notre victoire réveillera les peuples ”

Published on Wednesday, 19 February 2014 21:23

Nouvelobs.com | 06/02/2014 06h20

Alexis Tsipras Nous demandons des élections anticipées depuis près d'un an car la politique que mène le gouvernement contredit la volonté de la majorité du peuple..

Nοuvel Obs: Are you wishing for early elections right now?

Alexis Tsipras: We have been demanding early elections for more than a year now because the policy followed by the government contradicts the popular will of the majority of the people. And also because the prime minister , Antonis Samaras, promised in 2012 to re-negotiate with the troika in order to stop the recession. Or, after having usurped the popular voices, he has enforced in a manner more and more brutal the memorandum. Still, any early legislative elections depend on the government. In any case, we are going to have elections in a few months, those for the European parliament, which are going to demonstrate the truth regarding the balance of political forces in Greece.

SYRIZA is ahead in the polls. Can your party really win the elections?

The question is not to know whether SYRIZA is going to win but with what margin this will be achieved. We think that we are very close to obtaining an absolute majority in Parliament. Because the majority of the citizens, both of the left and the right, are totally disappointed, deceived, even disgusted by the promises that were not kept, and above all they are nauseatingly disaffected by the exposed connections between economic and political forces. Greece has found itself on the brink of bankcruptsy because an economic and political oligarchy has had a feast at the expense of the people for years. And these politicians, bankers, owners of news media wish to continue to govern us pretending that they will save us all along. The Greek people know that the situation is difficult. They are not asking us to be magicians. We are not able to change things from one day to the other. The Greek people are simply asking us to stop the country’s destruction, to negotiate in a manner that is very hard with our allies, and to stop the pillage created by the oligarchy.

You want to re-negotiate the debt. What will happen if the creditors refuse?

We do not want to re-negotiate only for the Greek people but also for the peoples of Europe. We want to re-negotiate the course of Europe. The unity of Europe depends on the relations among Greece , the countries on the periphery and the other countries in Europe. We do not have to do with a question that is Greek but with one that is European and to which a European solution must be found. That is why we are demanding a conference on the reconstruction, not unlike the 1953 London conference about Germany, where a great part of that country’s debt was finally removed. But we should not speak only in terms of the debt but also in terms of investments in the periphery in order to re-invigorate growth. We are going to negotiate a plan for growth both for Greece and for the other countries. We think that this is the only realistic solution. The reason is that a Europe without social cohesion is not the Europe that one has dreamed. We believe in a European Union, not a German Union.

What do you hope from a SYRIZA victory?

A SYRIZA victory in Greece will constitute an awakening for all the peoples in Europe, and equally so for the French people and Ms Merkel, who moves like a sleep-walker on the austerity path under the impression that it leads somewhere. In Greece, we have made some incredible sacrifices in order to save the banks though the country may go to ruins. We are going to apply a program not to lead us to socialism but to lead to the country’s salvation, to the exit from the crisis.