A Socialist candidate was leading in Paris, while the far right looked strong in several southern cities as projections arrived from first-round local elections on Sunday, seen as a political barometer ahead of France’s presidential poll.
A centrist touted as a strong contender for next year’s presidential race, Edouard Philippe, is well-placed to remain mayor in the northern city of Le Havre in a second-round local election in a week’s time.
The former prime minister, seen as one of the best candidates to take on the far-right National Rally (RN) party in next year’s presidential contest, had made his re-election in the port city a prerequisite of his campaign.
Photo: AFP
Analysts see the local races as an early indicator of key trends and patterns of tactical voting ahead of the presidential showdown.
The RN views next year’s contest as its strongest chance yet to take power, with French President Emmanuel Macron stepping down after the maximum two terms in office.
The elections in about 35,000 villages, towns and city boroughs are held over two rounds on consecutive Sundays.
In more than 90 percent of communes, the mayor was expected to be elected in the first round, but races in many bigger cities would go into second rounds, with politicians on Sunday evening already moving to make cross-party alliances against their key opponents.
In Paris, Socialist candidate Emmanuel Gregoire was in the lead ahead of former French minister of culture Rachida Dati, projections from two pollsters indicated.
Right-wing Dati is hoping to wrest control of the city from the left, which has run the French capital for the last quarter of a century.
The RN sees the local elections as an opportunity to show it can govern at the local level.
The far-right mayor of Perpignan was re-elected with 50.61 percent of the vote, official results showed.
The city of about 100,000 inhabitants is the largest city so far under control of the anti-immigration party.
In France’s second-largest city of more than 800,000, Marseille, an incumbent left-wing mayor was neck and neck with a far-right candidate.
In Nice, France’s fifth-biggest city of about 350,000, an ally of the far-right enjoyed a lead of about 10 percentage points, estimates showed.
The far-right party’s candidate was also in the lead in the southern city of Toulon — an urban center of more than 150,000 people — ahead of the incumbent mayor, projections showed.
“Change won’t wait for 2027. It starts next Sunday. It starts in seven days,” RN leader Jordan Bardella told supporters.
He also claimed “several outgoing mayors” from the party were re-elected in the first round.
Historically, France’s major cities have been governed either by center-left parties or the Republicans.
By contrast, the RN, far-left firebrand Jean Luc Melenchon’s party and Macron’s centrists have struggled to establish a strong local footprint.
In the northern town of Roubaix, a hard-left candidate had a strong lead with 45 percent of the vote. If he were to win in the second round, the town of about 98,000 people would become the largest city run by Melenchon’s party.
Pollsters said turnout on Sunday was the country’s lowest, other than the last local polls in 2020 held during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to estimates from several polling organizations, overall turnout stood at between 56 percent and 58.5 percent, compared with 63.55 percent at the equivalent elections in 2014.
The year 2020 aside, “we have reached a record low,” Francois Kraus of the IFOP polling institute said.
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