France’s left-wing parties retained control of its three largest cities, dealing a symbolic blow to the far-right’s momentum ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
PARIS: Leftist candidates secured decisive victories in France’s three largest cities, while the far-right National Rally failed to capture any major urban centres in Sunday’s municipal run-off elections.
The results are seen as a key indicator for the political landscape ahead of next year’s presidential race. The far right views 2027 as its best chance to seize national power as voters choose a successor to centrist President Emmanuel Macron.
In the capital, 48-year-old civil servant Emmanuel Gregoire extended the Socialists’ quarter-century rule of Paris. He celebrated his victory by cycling to city hall on one of the city’s iconic rental bikes.
“Paris has decided to stay true to its history,” a beaming Gregoire told a cheering crowd. He pledged the city would be “the heart of the resistance” against the right in the run-up to 2027.
In Marseille, leftist incumbent Benoit Payan was comfortably re-elected after presenting himself as a bulwark against the far right. The Greens’ Gregory Doucet narrowly prevailed in Lyon, defeating former football club owner Jean-Michel Aulas.
Businessman Aulas denounced “irregularities” and said he would file an appeal. The far right did secure several medium-sized southern enclaves, including Carcassonne, Menton and Cannes.
An ally of the far right, Eric Ciotti, won in the southern city of Nice, France’s fifth largest. RN party leader Jordan Bardella claimed Nice as a win for his own party.
“Tonight’s successes are just the beginning,” Bardella said. “The RN and its allies have never had so many elected representatives across French territory.”
The Socialists also kept Lille and Rennes and took Pau in the southwest from centrist former prime minister Francois Bayrou. Another ex-premier, centrist Edouard Philippe, was re-elected by the northern port city of Le Havre.
Philippe, who has declared his candidacy for the presidential race, is seen as a strong opponent to the RN’s potential pick. “There are reasons to hope,” Philippe told supporters in Le Havre.
The decision by the Socialists and Greens to ally with the hard-left France Unbowed party failed to bear much fruit in several key races. The hard left lost Toulouse, France’s fourth-largest city, to a right-wing candidate.
It did see mayors elected in the economically depressed city of Roubaix and the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. Overall election turnout stood at 57%, the country’s lowest in local polls bar the Covid-affected 2020 edition.
