‘Mother of all battles’: French left join forces to beat far-right electoral threat

Supporters rally as a placard reads ‘Popular Front’ during a meeting of the electoral coalition of left-wing parties, the ‘Nouveau Front Populaire’, on 22 June. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

The posters strung across the street in Montreuil, east of Paris, were still fluttering in the breeze days after the stage, the microphones and the politicians at the launch of France’s newest political force had gone.

Here, out of the smouldering ashes of the country’s bickering left, a coalition had risen to take on the far right.