Alain Badiou, a well known French leftist philosopher gave an interview on propaganda.gr on 9.05.2016 where amongst else said about Tsipras:
“It’s almost a tragic story. Personally, I think there was a historical and political moment, a momentum on the night of the referendum. That night Alexis Tsipras had the opportunity to take a historical decision. We can imagine it as a theatrical play. He had asked his people something. He had put a question. People answered “we are with the government”. His job was to give a clear answer to his people. Perhaps we can imagine him giving a very important speech saying: “Along with me you denied whatever Europe demands from you. I ask you to demonstrate to the streets, not thousands of you, but millions of you”. With his people on his side he could go to the Europeans and tell them: “I am with my people. Either you are going to change your decision, or I will resign and I will go with my people”. And believe me, if he acted like that Europeans would have been afraid. It was possible, I am completely sure that it was possible. At this point Tsipras proved that he was not a real politician, but one more manipulator. He was afraid to take decisions. When politics and history crosschecked a political personality takes on the dangers of a decision, excepting the dangers of his decision as well as the danger to loose, i.e. to abandon power. If Alexis Tsipras had acted like this he would have become hero for the whole Europe and for the whole world. Tsipras is a man who denied becoming a hero”.
Read Alain Badiou’ s full interview in Greek here:
