De Robien hails Spanish left ‘more modern’than ‘backward’ French Socialists

PARIS, March 16 (AFP) – The Spanish Socialist party, which won a surprise victory in Sunday’s elections, is more “modern” than its equivalent in France and should form a useful partnership with the centre-right government in Paris, the French transport minister Gilles de Robien said Tuesday.

“We are going to have a partner who is much more European, and a governing majority much more in harmony with the policies of the president, prime minister and government – notably on Iraq,” Robien told RMC Info radio.

“The Spanish left seems to me to be altogether more modern and less backward-looking than the French left … who are still stuck in the class struggle,” he said.

The French government has welcomed the election of the Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, which it hopes heralds a shift in the balance of power inside the European Union.

© AFP

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