What's Left for France's Socialists? They Can't Say.

In September, the French Socialist Party took a practical decision freighted with symbolism: It put the party headquarters up for sale. Situated on Rue de Solférino, a few hundred feet from the National Assembly and the iconic Musée d’Orsay, the imposing building had been acquired by the party in 1980, one year before François Mitterrand became the first Socialist president of the French Republic.

The decision, a sign of the party’s deep troubles after a crushing election, has been hotly debated in what’s left of the Socialists’ ranks. How has this center-left party, which as recently as 2012 held most of the executive powers in France’s regions and main administrative divisions, and which had a majority in the parliament, managed to lose everything in less than five years? Of all the changes that Emmanuel Macron has brought to the French landscape, the destruction of the Socialist Party is perhaps the most profound.