The July 5, 2015 referendum in Greece raised the hopes of millions of leftists across Europe, but Syriza’s capitulation to its creditors later that month reminded many of the harsh reality of the European left: it is still in a deep, durable state of crisis.

A few successes aside, the European left has proved largely unable to build counter-hegemonic organizations and win popular support. Nowhere is this failure more striking than in the case of France’s Front de gauche.

A broad left coalition founded in November 2008, the Front de gauche brought together different leftist organizations: the newly founded Left Party (PG), the century-old French Communist Party (PCF), and various smaller leftist tendencies that merged in November 2013 to form a new organization, Ensemble!. Its original goal was to build a broad left coalition that could challenge the Socialist Party’s (PS) hegemony over the French left through the fight for reforms.