If in the past the Socialist Party managed to unite the left around it, including its radical currents, today the extremist current has become the main force of the French left camp.
Its leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, has managed to form an electoral coalition ahead of next month's national elections, which could become a very significant force in the next French parliament.
The coalition, called the "New People's, Ecological and Social Union," includes in its ranks Melanchone's party, "Rebellious France," the Ecological Green Party, the remnants of the Communist Party and the Socialist Party, which is fighting for its existence.
The Socialists were the last to join this coalition, and the decision on the matter provoked a revolt in the ranks of the party and its leadership.
Opponents of the coalition within the Socialist Party are talking about mobilizing to vote for other political blocs under the heading "just not Melancholy."
Supporters of the Socialist Party in France wave the French flag at an election conference last month, Photo: EPI.
One senior party official said earlier this week: "Melenchon's policy can be summarized as the policy of the three departures: leaving Europe, leaving NATO and leaving the World Trade Organization.
"France's situation will be the same as that of North Korea."
Other critics of joining the coalition led by Melenchon warn that the principles of his socio-economic policy will make France Venezuela Europe - if, God forbid, a situation arises after the parliamentary elections that would require President Emanuel Macron to entrust the prime minister to Jean-Luc Melenchon.
The socialist collapse
Melenchon and the leaders of the New People's Union hope to use the parliamentary elections as a "third round of voting", which will cut Macron's wings as president and force him to work with a left-wing parliament, the coexistence system that previously forced socialist president François Mitterrand to rule. With a conservative government, and the conservative president, Jacques Chirac, to rule with a left-wing government.
The populist right also has similar hopes - but given the deep split in its ranks, the chances of forming a government under its leadership are quite slim.
According to recent French opinion polls, the results of which were also reflected in the presidential election in the face of record abstention, most French people (58%) do not trust Emanuel Macron to deal with the problems and challenges facing France, compared to only 34% who do.
In answer to the question of which of the opposition leaders would be better suited to deal with the problems, 37% mentioned Melenchon's name compared to 33% who mentioned La Pen.
However, turnout will be a decisive factor in the general election.
French elections: Emanuel Macron defeats Marin Le Pen last month // Photo: Reuters
The collapse of the Socialist Party as the main left-wing party began in the last years of the presidency of François Hollande, who in the face of the record of unpopularity he recorded, decided not to run again for the French presidency on behalf of the party.
Macron, a former Socialist Party member who served as finance minister under the Netherlands, garnered most of the Socialists' votes in the 2017 presidential election (and remember, even recently when he ran in the second round again against far-right candidate Marin Le Pen).
Macron's party, the Republic in Movement, significantly narrowed the Socialist Party's power in the last parliamentary elections, held in June 2017: if in the 2012 elections the party held 295 deputies, in those elections the Socialists fell to only 30 deputies.
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