The Guardian view on the French left: division makes Marine Le Pen’s path to the Élysée more straightforward | Editorial

Two years ago, progressive parties allied to see off the far right in a parliamentary election. Ahead of a seismic presidential election, that unity is missing 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 the most important election in the history of the Fifth Republic looms, is that chronic division will ease Ms Le Pen’s path to the Élysée. The 75-year-old Mr Mélenchon is a deeply polarising figu