Ex-president Francois Hollande emerges as surprise candidate in French election

Hollande said he will stand as an MP for the southwestern Correze department for the New Popular Front, a left-wing union for the elections including Socialists, hard-left, Greens and Communists.

“An exceptional decision for an exceptional situation,” Hollande told reporters in the department’s main town of Tulle, describing his comeback.

Hollande has already backed the new broad left-wing union saying that we “must all do everything to make sure the far-right does not come to power in France”.

Hollande is not the first president to run for legislative elections after leaving the Elysee Palace. In 1984, three years after his defeat against Francois Mitterand in presidential elections, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was elected MP for the Puy-de-Dome department.

Officially, the Socialist Party reacted cooly to the move with the head of its election commission Pierre Jouvet simply saying that it “takes note” of the candidacy.

But one senior party figure, asking not to be named, said they were “devastated” by the news while admitting: “We said we wanted the broadest possible left wing.”

The elections, with a first round on June 30 and second on July 7, were called by Macron after the far-right trounced his own centrist ruling party in this month’s European elections.