In the summer of 2024, as polls suggested that Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party would win a snap legislative election rashly called by Emmanuel Macron, the perennially fragmented French left united to spectacular effect. The New Popular Front, whose name evoked Léon Blum’s anti-fascist alliance in the 1930s, came first in a poll that delivered a hung parliament.

Eight months before a presidential contest in which Ms Le Pen is the clear frontrunner, the prospect of a repeat performance appears close to zero. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the hard-left France Unbowed, and Olivier Faure, the leader of the Socialist party (PS), have both ruled out the idea of backing a single candidate. Efforts by the Greens to broker talks between progressive parties have fallen on deaf ears.

The obvious danger, as........

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