Benoit Hamon | Stephane De Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images French Green leader gives up election bid, endorses Hamon Socialist candidate is hoping to make it to the runoff round by securing the combined votes of the left.

Yannick Jadot, the leader of the French Green Party, dropped out of the election race Thursday and endorsed Socialist candidate Benoît Hamon, Libération reported.

Members of the Greens will now be asked to endorse giving their support to Hamon.

"My goal is for the next president to be an environmentalist, and Benoît Hamon's victory in the primary has changed the political landscape and has given everyone a responsibility," Jadot said, adding that "my responsibility is to go beyond the ego."

The announcement had been expected for days. Hamon has been polling fourth behind Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron and François Fillon, and hoped securing the backing of other leftists would boost his chances of making it through to the second round.

He had announced that he was in talks with both Jadot and veteran left-winger Jean-Luc Mélenchon. While talks with Mélenchon have floundered, Hamon was more successful with Jadot. In return for his support, Jadot asked the Socialists to abandon plans to construct a radioactive waste dump and an airport near Nantes, Libération reported.

Hamon expressed satisfaction with the agreement, and in a nod to Mélenchon said he hoped the "other sensibilities of the left" would take note.

Independent candidate Macron, currently second in the polls behind the far-right's Le Pen, received a shot in the arm on Wednesday when veteran centrist François Bayrou endorsed him.