Tsipras calls Farage monstrosity created by austerity

Nikos Chrysoloras & Eleni Chrepa

Greece’s main opposition leader distanced his group from other protest parties that made gains in the European elections, calling the U.K. Independence Party and the National Front in France “monstrosities.”

Alexis Tsipras, who rocked international markets when he emerged as the political force to counter now-Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Greek elections two years ago, said on May 28 his Syriza party is “an oasis in this desert.”

“We are a pro-European force that wants to change Europe, not dismantle it,” Tsipras, 39, said in his first interview since winning Greece’s European elections on May 25. “Austerity has led to the creation of political monstrosities.”

Voters across Europe deserted the parties that held power during the economic crisis as unemployment across the 28-nation bloc increased to a record last year.

While UKIP leader Nigel Farage and France’s nationalist leader Marine Le Pen want to roll back European powers to protect the interests of the British and the French, Tsipras said his Syriza party is focused on transforming EU policy.

Syriza, a Greek acronym for Coalition of the Radical Left, got 26.6 percent in the election, compared with 22.7 percent for Samaras’s governing New Democracy party.

Tsipras, who was a member of the Greek Communist Party Youth in the 1980s and named his youngest son after Ernesto Che Guevara, said at his office in Athens Syriza would ally with Spain’s Podemos movement, which won five seats.

Socialist bloc

It may consider cooperating with the Socialists, the European Parliament’s second biggest group, if they are prepared to challenge the budget-cutting...