Former
Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was the guest speaker at the
yearly socialist ‘fête de la Rose’ gathering in Frangy-en-Bresse
in Burgundy this weekend, invited by former French economy minister
and anti-austerity campaigner Arnaud Montebourg. This is the text in
full of Varoufakis’ revealing and insightful speech.
Let me tell
you why I am here with words I have borrowed from a famous old
manifesto. I am here because:
A spectre is
haunting Europe — the spectre of democracy. All the powers of old
Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre:
the state-sponsored bankers and the Eurogroup, the Troika and Dr
Schäuble, Spain’s heirs of Franco’s political legacy and the
SPD’s Berlin leadership, Baltic governments that subjected their
populations to terrible, unnecessary recession and Greece’s
resurgent oligarchy.
I am here in
front of you because a small nation chose to oppose this holy
alliance. To look at them in the eye and say: Our liberty is not for
sale. Our dignity is not for auction. If we give up liberty and
dignity, as you demand that we do, Europe will lose its integrity and
forfeit its soul.
I am here in
front of you because nothing good happens in Europe if it does not
start from France.
The
whole speech:
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