French party chiefs to run for same seat

PARIS — The leaders of France’s leftist and rightist parties will run for the same seat in parliamentary elections next month, pitting charismatic former presidential candidates who tapped into dissatisfaction with the country’s mainstream leaders against each other.

The Left Front’s Jean-luc Melenchon announced Saturday that he would run for Parliament in the same northern district where Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front, had already announced her candidacy.

Both politicians electrified crowds during the presidential race, tapping into anger over the poor state of the economy and how France’s leaders have responded to it.

France’s growth has stagnated and its unemployment rate is at 10 percent. The coun- try has a high deficit and debt that economists say it must get under control, probably by overhauling its generous social-benefits system.

But the poor economy has made such changes and cuts especially unpopular, and the candidates on the extremes of the political spectrum used that to make significant inroads during the presidential election.

Le Pen confounded polls and shocked many observers by garnering 18 percent of the vote in the first round; Melenchon grabbed 11 percent of the vote. Francois Hollande, the Socialist candidate, went on to win the second round.