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The French returned to the polls this Sunday for the second round of close municipal elections in most cities, including Paris, where the left could lose after 25 years in power.
The extreme right hopes to conquer, for its part, several cities in the southeast of France, such as Marseille, Toulon and Nice, which would confirm its establishment in the political landscape a year before the 2027 presidential election.
“The final results of these local elections will offer valuable indications about the state of mind of the French” in the face of the queen electoral event, according to the newspaper Le Monde.
In the first four hours of voting, 20.33% of voters participated, according to the Ministry of the Interior. All eyes are on the final estimate, especially when the first round last week recorded the highest abstention in municipal elections behind those of 2020, held in the middle of the pandemic.
The campaign was marked by strong tension between the parties, when France is experiencing a deep political crisis since the early legislative elections of 2024 that left three blocs without majorities: left, center-right and far-right.
With Marine Le Pen disqualified, far-right MEP Jordan Bardella leads the race to succeed center-right president Emmanuel Macron, who can no longer run, according to polls.
Alliances on the left and center-right will be key to contesting the 2027 runoff against the extreme right and, in this sense, the municipal elections will give the first indications about the balance of forces in each bloc.
– «Adjusted difference» –
In Paris, the socialist deputy Emmanuel Grégoire led the first round in a coalition with environmentalists and communists with 37.98% of the vote, followed by the conservative former minister Rachida Dati (25.46%).
Three other candidates qualified for the second round, but only one remained: Sophia Chikirou, a deputy from Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left party France Insoumise (LFI), who obtained 11.72% of the vote.
After a campaign focused on attacking the socialists, Grégoire refused to ally with Chikirou, while Dati merged his list with a center-right candidate and his chances increased with the withdrawal of the far-right Sarah Knafo.
Grégoire accused Macron of having “intervened” to “help Sarah Knafo withdraw” and thus benefit his former Minister of Culture. The president denied it, but the newspaper Le Monde assured that sources close to him confirm it.
Uncertainty hangs over the City of Light over who will succeed socialist Anne Hidalgo, who resigned from running for a third term after 12 years in office, during which she transformed Paris to adapt to climate change.
«It is important [votar] because the difference between the left and the right is very tight,” Patrice Laurent, a 77-year-old voter in the Stalingrad neighborhood, in the northeast of Paris, told AFP.
– Marseille, far-right? –
A victory for a united right in Paris would be an important success for 2027, against a disunited left. Socialists, environmentalists and LFI did manage to unite in other cities such as Lyon and Toulouse, whose results will also be closely followed.
The left also failed to ally in Marseille, on the shores of the Mediterranean, but LFI decided to withdraw from the second round to prevent the victory of the far right against the outgoing socialist mayor, Benoît Payan.
The victory of the far-right deputy Franck Allisio in France’s second city, hit by drug trafficking, would cause a national earthquake, especially when the far right could win other nearby cities such as Nice or Toulon.
Macron’s former prime minister, the center-right Édouard Philippe, is also staking his presidential ambitions in the port of Le Havre, in northwest France, as he has pinned his candidacy in 2027 on his re-election as mayor.
The first results will be known from 7:00 p.m. GMT when the last polling stations close. Voting is only done in about 1,500 localities, since the vast majority chose their mayors in the first round.
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