Online joker lists Socialist headquarters ‘for sale’

The Socialist Party headquarters in Rue de Solférino in Paris was listed ‘for sale’ following a disastrous blow for the Socialist party in the first round of the legislative elections, which saw the party walk away with just 9.5 percent of the vote.

Although the Socialist Party has made no indication that it will sell its historic headquarters in the heart of Paris, one joker jumped online to post the advert on estate agency website Leboncoin on Sunday evening, before the election results were even announced.

“Historic monument for sale – the old Socialist party headquarters at 10 Rue de Solférino, sold due to bad election results. Could be turned into museum”, said the advert, which did not specify a price. It was posted by a user called ‘Camba’, a nod to First Secretary of the Socialist Party Jean-Christophe Cambadélis.

The anonymous writer of the advert told HuffPost, “I made up the ad to mock my party in a cynical way.” The link to the advert is no longer working.

The first round of the French legislative election results dealt a huge blow to the Socialist Party, which only managed to secure 9.5 percent of the vote. Macron’s La Republique En Marche! party won a landslide 32 percent of votes. The Républicains and the Front National both fared better than the Socialists, gaining 21.5 percent and 13.2 percent of the vote respectively.

Turnout was the lowest in modern history, with only 49 percent of 47 million registered voters casting their ballot, the lowest figure in six decades. In contract, 78 percent of voters turned out for the first round of the French presidential election in April.