The shock of Sunday’s French municipal elections was the Socialist defeat, not Front National success

France held municipal elections on 23 and 30 March. As Jocelyn Evans and Gilles Ivaldi write, François Hollande’s governing Socialist Party (PS) endured a particularly disappointing result, losing many of the gains it had made in the 2008 elections. They argue that while much of the media coverage centred on the success of the Front National; the PS’s defeat, and the subsequent reshuffle in the government with Manuel Valls becoming the new prime minister, will have important ramifications for the French left.