Jospin, a defender of traditional parties, had criticized President Emmanuel Macron for making them obsolete and the French president’s “hubris” in a book published in 2020.
Macron praised Jospin as “a great French figure” in a social media post Monday. “Through his rigor, courage and ideal of progress, he embodied a lofty vision of the Republic,” Macron wrote on X.
Jospin, who successfully united the left camp during his tenure as the party’s leader in the 1990s and became prime minister in 1997, supported the left-wing alliance uniting the Socialists, the Greens and far-left France Unbowed during the 2022 legislative election campaign.
But he cautioned against France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s disruptive political strategy shortly after the election, warning of its potentially destructive effects on the broader left in an interview with Le Monde.
Jospin’s death was announced the morning after local elections that are setting the scene for the 2027 presidential race, at a time when the left is weakened by deep divisions among moderates over whether uniting with a dominant but increasingly toxic Mélenchon is inevitable — or risking sinking the left’s ship.