A marriage made in protest

The marriage between French foreign policy and the anti-globalization movement was a marriage waiting to happen. From today’s Financial Times: The second European Social Forum opened yesterday in Paris, welcoming 50,000 people drawn from more than 1,200 organisations seeking to exchange ideas and find common ground to counter globalisation and the perceived dangers of the ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

The marriage between French foreign policy and the anti-globalization movement was a marriage waiting to happen. From today's Financial Times:

The marriage between French foreign policy and the anti-globalization movement was a marriage waiting to happen. From today’s Financial Times:

The second European Social Forum opened yesterday in Paris, welcoming 50,000 people drawn from more than 1,200 organisations seeking to exchange ideas and find common ground to counter globalisation and the perceived dangers of the free market in Europe. The three-day session of plenary meetings, seminars and workshops spread over four locations will test the strength and diversity of the anti-globalisation movement as it seeks to build on its first forum in Florence last year and the success of the original gathering at Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001. The main agenda will discuss propositions for an alternative “anti-liberal” development model for the European Union that is also more citizen-friendly. But attention will also focus on ways to challenge US “unilateralism”. The forum is being hosted and largely sponsored by Paris city hall, along with three of the capital’s satellite cities. On President Jacques Chirac’s instructions €500,000 of the €3.7m ($4.3m, £2.6m) organisational budget is coming from the French foreign ministry and the prime minister’s office.

My only surprise at reading this is that it took this long.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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