France: No Face Time for French Front-Runner - by Gabrielle Parussini and William Boston

French presidential front-runner François Hollande is taking the lead of a coalition of European left-leaning parties pushing for growth-boosting measures to revive the Continent's flagging economy and balance calls for austerity from conservative leaders, many of whom are refusing to meet him.

As Europe's center-right leaders close their doors to the French Socialist candidate amid fears he will want to scale back fiscal measures painfully agreed to in December, Mr. Hollande has traveled to Madrid, Brussels, Berlin, Rome and London in recent months, interweaving a thick network of alliances with the Continent's opposition leaders.

Some of them—including Pier Luigi Bersani, head of Italy's Partito Democratico, and Sigmar Gabriel, who leads Germany's main opposition Social Democrats—will join Mr. Hollande at a two-day seminar in Paris next week to voice their support for him and the need for propping up the economy, according to the Socialist Party schedule.

For more: No Face Time for French Front-Runner - WSJ.com