A pre-revolutionary fervour is sweeping Europe.
“The atmosphere is a little similar to the time after 1968 in Europe. I can feel, maybe not a revolutionary mood, but something like widespread impatience”.
These were the words of European council president Donald Tusk, 48 hours after Greece’s paymasters imposed the most punishing bail-out measures ever forced on a debtor nation in the eurozone’s 15-year history
“When impatience becomes not an individual but a social experience of feeling, this is the introduction for revolutions” said Tusk.
“I am really afraid of this ideological or political contagion.”
His unease reflects a widespread conviction that Europe’s elites had no choice but to make an example out of Greece.
Alexis Tsipras was forced to submit to a deal that punished his government’s insolence, […]