Anne Hidalgo renews call for French left to choose one presidential candidate

Socialist mayor of Paris says divided leftwing field risks being wiped out by rise of far right

Anne Hidalgo, the French Socialist presidential candidate, has repeated her plea for her leftwing rivals to unite, saying the left risked collapsing amid the alarming rise of the far-right.

We're at a critical moment for our democracy," Hidalgo said before a rally in Perpignan. The left is at risk of disappearing. Hate speech and xenophobia have saturated the airwaves for months."