In 2002, divisions on the left allowed Jean-Marie Le Pen to shock France by reaching the run-off in that year’s presidential election. Lionel Jospin, the defeated Socialist candidate in the poll, would subsequently recall the humiliation to remind progressives of the need for unity in the face of the far-right threat. Mr Jospin’s death, announced on Monday, has overshadowed the weekend’s local election results. But as they are pored over for clues to a seismic presidential contest that Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, believes she can win next year, it is clear that alliances – or their absence – will shape that race too.

In Paris and Marseille, Socialist candidates won handsome mayoral victories at the head of a broad left grouping that included Greens and Communists, but not Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left France Unbowed party (LFI). Emmanuel Grégoire’s second-round victory in Paris was particularly impressive, given that it was achieved against both a united........

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