France’s Socialists have been punished for their intolerance

One of the more significant results from the first round of the French parliamentary elections on Sunday was in the Corrèze. There, in the rural south of the country, Sandrine Deveaud of the Nouvelle union populaire écologiste et sociale (Nupes) came top with 25.4 per cent of the vote. This is the left-wing alliance assembled by Jean-Luc Melenchon in the wake of April’s presidential election result, bringing together his far-left France insoumise, the Greens, the Communists and the Socialist party. The Socialists were the last to come on board. And even then many within the party refused to submit to Melenchon and declared they would stand against Nupes’ candidates in the parliamentary election.

Annick Taysse did just that in the Corrèze, and she received the enthusiastic endorsement of François Hollande. What a boon, she must have thought, to get the backing of the former Socialist president and the man who built his political career in the region, where for 20 years he was the MP.