You're missing something here, the "socialist party" is and has long been a right wing party, to the left of the further right ump, itself a bit to the left of the far right front national.
But the point is that wherever the party falls is irrelevant, political parties have been mostly puppets pushing corporatist agendas for quite a while.
I'm not missing anything, that's why I put "socialists" in quotes. These people aren't "socialists" of course they are a fraud.
Frankly I shouldn't even talk about french politics anymore, things are a bit desperate,it's a race to the bottom.But I guess it's happening everywhere. Or it has always been like this and it's just more obvious today, I don't know.
Socialism is awful in the EU. See what is happening to Greece? It's been cornered by virtually every other state in the EU. And no, it's not about broken state economics, that's fairy tales for little kids, it's mostly about not voting what Brussels/Germany wants. They want to set an example to everyone else. The only reason Greece is still in, it's because no one is sure what's gonna happen once it's ousted.
So generally speaking, you either vote for Holande/Sarkozy or you're gonna face the same kind of treatment. And from what I've seen so far, LePen apart, you don't have any other politician is likely to go a head to head with Merkel.
But the point is that wherever the party falls is irrelevant, political parties have been mostly puppets pushing corporatist agendas for quite a while.