Why Greece is not France

On the evening of July 7, a deep sigh of relief from Athens accompanied the lively celebrations on the streets of France. The proponents of the idea of creating a grand coalition of the progressive zone that would be able to compete on equal terms with New Democracy and Kyriakos Mitsotakis mirrored the Greek center-left in the victory of the New Popular Front - each of them, of course, with a different image.

The idea is not new, the slogan "Let's move forward with a Greek Epinay" has been monotonously repeated since 2012 and the (original) Pasokification - the term that was to become established for the electoral discontent of social democratic parties. In theory the model looks very good and the timing more than appropriate.

In 1971, France's fractured socialists met in Epinay-sur-Seine, north of Paris, for a historic founding congress. There Francois Mitterrand...