Symbol of French Socialists’ demise, posh HQ is up for sale

PARIS – France’s Socialists — who are reeling from this year’s damaging electoral defeat — are so broke they are putting their famed Paris headquarters up for sale.

The opulent Left Bank townhouse known as “Solferino,” acquired in 1981, was always a bit awkward as the headquarters of a party that touted equality.

But a historic loss of power — the Socialists lost the Elysee to centrist Emmanuel Macron in May and did abysmally in June’s parliamentary elections — meant a drop in public subsidies for the party equivalent to tens of millions of euros each year.

The party is deep in debt and its presidential candidate, Benoit Hamon, quit the party in July.

French political commentators are calling the building’s sale the end of an era.