Winning next month's legislative election may be a long shot for France's new hard-left alliance, but the fact President Emmanuel Macron now faces two euroskeptic opposition blocs should cause concern among France's European Union partners.
The French left this week united under the leadership of a euroskeptic party that wants to "disobey" EU rules and "destabilize the Brussels machine," departing for the first time from the pro-EU stance of previous left-wing coalitions.
This reflects a new state of play in French politics with the Socialist Party, long the dominant force on the left and a driver of European integration, now reduced to a subordinate role in an alliance forged by hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon.
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