The left achieved a rare success in Paris on Sunday with the victory of Emmanuel Grégoire in the capital’s mayoral election. The Socialist candidate saw off the challenge of the centre-right candidate Rachida Dati in the second round. Grégoire is the third consecutive Socialist mayor of the French capital, a run that stretches back to the election of Bertrand Delanoe in 2001.

‘Paris has decided to stay true to its history,’ exclaimed Grégoire in his victory speech. ‘Paris will be the heart of the resistance against this alliance of the right, which seeks to take away what we hold most precious and fragile: the simple joy of living together.’

But is it the right in France that seeks to divide people or the alliance of Socialists, Communists, Greens and, in particular, Jean-Luc Melenchon’s la France Insoumise (LFI)?

Grégoire was one of the few Socialist candidates who refused to form a coalition with LFI after last-week’s first-round of voting in municipal elections across France. So, too, did the candidates in Marseille and Pau – and their principled stand was also rewarded with victory. In Pau, the Socialist Jérôme Marbot defeated the former centrist prime minister Francois Bayrou, who had ruled the southern city since 2014.

But where Socialist candidates did ally with LFI – the party that sends a shudder down the spine of........

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