Alexis Tsipras: from Greek Corbyn to EU poster boy

Alexis Tsipras, who leads the far-left Syriza party, took part in school sit-ins and named his son after Che Guevara. Then he morphed into a pragmatist who kept Greece in the euro. Jane Lewis reports.

910-Tsipras-634

Alexis Tsipras: a man of contradictions
(Image credit: This content is subject to copyright.)

Greece's prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, isn't privately given to melodramatic gestures. But he marked the country's formal exit from its third bailout programme this week by evoking "the epic spirit of Odysseus", says the Financial Times. Tsipras travelled to Ithaca, home of the Homeric hero, to declare "a new era" for Greece after a nine-year crisis. The man once deemed "the biggest threat to European unity" said Greece is on its way to becoming a pillar of EU stability.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.