Listeners question the editorial treatment of the municipal election campaign in France. To answer them, Florent Guyotat, deputy editorial director of Franceinfo, is at Emmanuelle Daviet’s microphone.
Emmanuelle Daviet: Since January, you have covered the municipal campaign. According to what criteria do you choose the municipalities where you send reporters, listeners ask? Are you looking for a balance between large metropolises and medium-sized cities?
Florent Guyotat: So, since last month, you have regularly heard this little music on the air.
[Extrait sonore : « Franceinfo, municipales 2026 »]
Florent Guyotat: So since the start of 2026, we have selected around twenty cities in France, with twice a week, in the morning at 6:20 a.m. and 8:20 a.m., a report in one of these cities in which we interview the main candidates. There is obviously the trio Paris, Lyon, Marseille, but not only that. We selected the cities which actually correspond to the major national issues. One of the challenges of these elections is the possible surge of the National Rally. Will this party win certain important cities? We went in particular to Toulon. You can still hear it today with Marine Le Pen‘s on-site visit. And I’ll give you another example, during the last municipal elections in 2020, one of the highlights was the breakthrough of environmentalists who won important cities like Bordeaux, Besançon, Strasbourg. We therefore wonder whether environmentalists will be able to preserve these cities. We returned to the site to see how the management of these municipalities was appreciated by the population. So there you have it for some of the major national issues across 20 cities, large or medium-sized.
Emmanuelle Daviet: What about rural communities?
Florent Guyotat: So, we don’t forget them either. We have organized several special days around the issues that concern them. This week again, last Thursday, a day dedicated to one of the great challenges of rural mayors: fighting against medical desertification, attracting health professionals as in this town in Eure where the mayor managed to find a nurse who takes care of part of the doctors’ work.
[ Extrait de reportage ]
Florent Guyotat: Extract from a report by Anne-Laure Dagnet, from the Sciences-Health-Environment department of Franceinfo. It was last Thursday.
Emmanuelle Daviet: Florent Guyotat, getting all of your listeners interested in a local subject can be a challenge. How can we maintain editorial interest for a listener who lives 600 kilometers, for example, from the place mentioned? Do you systematically seek to bring out a national dimension in each local report on housing, security or health, as we have just heard?
Florent Guyotat: We strive to do that. Yes, we heard a moment ago that we are in a commune in Eure or Aveyron, there are common issues that we find everywhere in France. This is what we want to emphasize. And since January, in addition to the reports I told you about on the main political battles, each week we have organized a special day with themes such as public transport, security, health. We were talking about it, the environment, economic attractiveness. What can mayors do in each of these areas? What are the limits of their action? These are the questions we asked ourselves.
Emmanuelle Daviet: Does personalization around candidates remain a strong lever? Or do you prioritize substantive issues?
Florent Guyotat: We try to reconcile the two. Politics is of course a people business. You regularly hear about the rivalry between Rachida Dati and Emmanuel Grégoire in Paris on Franceinfo. Same thing in Lyon with Jean-Michel Aulas and Grégory Doucet. It’s normal to deal with this, it’s political life. But political life is also about ideas and fundamental issues. And that’s why we organized all these thematic days, beyond clashes between personalities.
Emmanuelle Daviet: Thematic days can therefore be found on the Franceinfo website.
