On 19 April 2016, Zoe Konstantopoulou announced the founding of Course of Freedom. According to its founding declaration, the party's purpose of action consists of democracy, justice, transparency, rights, debt cancellation and claim for World War II reparations.[40]
Konstantopoulou, along with the party, had attended and called for support of the "Macedonia name" anti-Prespa Agreement mass protests of 2018 and 2019, with the slogan "I'm not ceding my homeland", having been the only political figure of the Greek left to openly do so.[41][42][8][5]
Konstantopoulou and the party have also launched a "Don't Pay" movement and a campaign of "general disobedience" towards debts, taxes and insurance contributions since 2017.[79]
The party's program includes confiscation of property of bankers and politicians who will be deemed responsible for the country's inclusion in the Memoranda, and also shutting down all media accused of "propaganda and entanglement" and doing away with the riot control known as MAT, replacing the last two with citizen collaboration/participation alternatives.[86][87]
Course of Freedom openly impugnes the Euro and the Eurozone, and is in favour of monetary sovereignty, with Konstantopoulou stating a clear "no" to the Euro; Course of Freedom wants currency to function as a "tool of freedom" irrespective of whether its form will be electronic, digital or drachma. It is also in favour of alternative currencies and alternative means of payment and transactions. [76][77][78]
Course of Freedom has supported and voted in favour of legalising same-sex marriage.[88] It has also supported criminalizing femicide as a separate crime with special characteristics, and has proposed the creation of an official body to record femicides.[89][90][7]
^ abThe Macedonia Question"...they also touched a chord on sectors of a "patriotic left"...the rally was also supported by Zoe Konstantopoulou, the former president of the Greek parliament and founder of the "Course of Freedom" movement", Jacobin.com by Stathis Kouvelakis March 2018, Retrieved 24 June 2019
^ abcZULIANELLO, MATTIA (2023). "Populist parties in Central and Eastern Europe: Regional trends in comparative perspective". Poliarchie/Polyarchies (Special Issue 2023). Trieste: EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste: 63. doi:10.13137/2611-2914/35183. ISSN2611-2914. Among them, the top performer was Greece (28.4%) thanks to the combined result of three left-wing populist parties (see Tsatsanis et al. 2021): SYRIZA (23.8%), the European Realistic Disobedience Front (3.0%) and Course of Freedom (1.6%).
^ abUğur Ekinci, Mehmet; Yusufoğlu, Yusuf (31 July 2023). "Why the Left Fell and the Right Rose in Greece". Politics Today. There is fierce competition among left-wing parties to fill the vacuum left by SYRIZA's decline. The Course of Freedom (PE) party, led by Zoe Konstantopoulou, a former SYRIZA member, managed to enter the parliament with a program close to the radical views that SYRIZA advocated before it came to power.
^ ab"Minister Christos Stylianides causes a stir with "Cyprus is half Turkish" comment". Neos Kosmos. 22 February 2024. This comment garnered reactions from Greek and Cypriot politicians and parties, with far-right Ελληνική Λύση (Greek Solution) party MP Kostas Hitas saying he had been "left speechless" and left wing Course of Freedom party leader Zoe Konstantopoulou demanding a retraction.
^ abMessinis, Aris (26 June 2023). "Conservatives win Greek elections". Azərbaycan24. Another newcomer in the legislature is the left-wing Course of Freedom party, whose leader Zoe Konstantopoulou briefly served as speaker in 2015.
^ abMaltezou, Renee (22 June 2023). Frances Kerry (ed.). "Explainer-Greece's election on Sunday: how the system works". SWI swissinfo. Opinion polls suggest that up to seven parties could enter parliament, including the leftist Plefsi Eleftherias, founded by former Syriza lawmaker Zoe Konstantopoulou, and a newly set up far-right party called Spartans.
^"With Resounding Win in Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis Tightens Grip on Power". The New York Times. 25 June 2023. Retrieved 16 June 2024. Syriza also had to contend with increased support for hard-left fringe parties, including Sailing for Freedom, which was formed by the former Syriza official Zoe Konstantopoulou and was poised to gain national representation for the first time.
^e-Kathimerini (27 June 2023). "The true message from the ballot box". Kathimerini. Retrieved 29 June 2023. The entry into Parliament of three far-right parties and the radical leftist Course of Freedom is, without doubt, the most alarming message to emerge from Sunday's general election.
^ ab"The underground of new parties in the European Parliament". EUnews. 10 June 2024. Retrieved 16 June 2024. It is a different matter for Course for Freedom (PE), a far-left party critical of Israel's response to the Nov. 7 attacks, anti-austerity and against neo-liberalism, which describes itself as "anti-establishment" with respect to the EU policies conducted so far.
^Kyriazi, Anna. "Parliamentary elections in Greece, May-June 2023". Elections in Europe: 2023 (4). Electoral Bulletins of the European Union. Apart from the parties already possessing parliamentary representation, a few smaller ones also seemed to have a realistic chance of passing the 3% electoral threshold. Course of Freedom-Πλεύση Ελευθερίας (CoF), a party founded by Zoe Konstantopoulou, a formerly prominent member of SYRIZA, was one of them. The party is generally considered radical left, though on many issues it sits uneasily on the left-right axis and is first and foremost characterized by its profoundly anti-establishment stance and hard Euroscepticism (Kordas 2023).
^"PM's choice for president elected as ND fights back over Tempe". MacroPolis. 14 February 2025. The survey's measure of voting intentions found considerable support for Course of Freedom, the far left populist party led by Zoe Konstantopoulou, and the nativist far right Voice of Reason led by Afroditi Latinopoulou.
^ abcZoe Konstantopoulou: Mr. Tsipras is destroying the country: "Precisely how would Plefsi Eleftherias describe its political identity? Some critics say that you do not belong to the Left [...] We are a force that aims to overturn the establishment, and we are appealing to all democratically active citizens, without the walls of old-party divisions. We look neither to the Left nor the Right" in.gr 21 October 2018, Retrieved 24 June 2019
Rovisco, Maria; Veneti, Anastasia; Poulakidakos, Stamatis (2017). Axford, Barrie; Gulmez, Didem Buhari; Gulmez, Seckin Baris (eds.). Rethinking Ideology in the Age of Global Discontent(PDF). p. 16. doi:10.4324/9781315109008. ISBN978-1-315-10900-8. As it is also clearly stated in their web site, the movement maintains strong positions with regards to a range of issues beyond those discussed above such as: popular sovereignty, a demand of national independence and social justice, rupture with neoliberal policies and the European Institutions that support them, fight against fascism, ceasing of privatisations and a restructuring of the society on socialist foundations. The 'Do not pay movement' members use this narrative mainly to designate their ideological opponents and establish their activist tactics, which aim at disseminating the rationale of civic disobedience, through a grassroots activism, against the unfair legislations and policies that suppress the lower and middle classes of society.
Michas, Takis (14 April 2011). "Greece′s Rule of Lawlessness". European Business Review. Then there are the various movements of "civil disobedience" organized by Greece's hard-left groups. These include the "Den plirono" ("I won't pay") phenomenon, which amounts to supposedly brave refuseniks lifting barriers at motorway toll-booths and driving through without paying.
Reuben-Shemia, Dalilah (2017). Christoph Scherrer; Alexander Gallas (eds.). "Trade Unions in Greece between Crisis and Revitalization: Rebuilding Workers' Power from Below?". New Research in Global Political Economy (3). Kasseler Online Bibliothek Repository & Archiv. ""Den Plirono" started as a campaign in opposition to privatization of public goods and broadened to a civil disobedience movement, including resistance to pay road charges, increased public transport fees, bailiffs, and against shut-down of electricity for those who cannot afford to pay heightened bills. Moreover they organize neighborhood assemblies and public debates on the source of debt, the Euro-crisis and the necessity to exit the Euro-zone (META, 2013)".
Rovisco, Maria; Veneti, Anastasia; Poulakidakos, Stamatis (2017). Axford, Barrie; Gulmez, Didem Buhari; Gulmez, Seckin Baris (eds.). Rethinking Ideology in the Age of Global Discontent(PDF). p. 1. doi:10.4324/9781315109008. ISBN978-1-315-10900-8. In this chapter we look at the case of the anti-austerity Greek social movement 'Do Not Pay' Movement (To kinima den plirono) in order to examine whether and how the protestors attempt to define their political presence and affirm their collective identity by exercising a new form of politics that goes beyond established ideological divisions between Left and Right.