Both the French extreme right and the radical left have demanded a significant rise in the held this Sunday in the country, marked by low participation.
Jordan Bardellapresident of the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen, assured that the vote estimates point to a result “in line with the last European and legislative elections”, in which this party prevailed, and assured that many of its current mayors were re-elected in the first round.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the leftist La Francia Insumisa (LFI), Manuel Bompardpointed out that they have had “an important progression” in the municipal elections and that in some localities they have multiplied their 2020 results by four.
While waiting for the results of the official count to be known, the two most extreme parties relied on the first estimates, which refer to rural France and medium-sized cities.
Bardella boasted that Louis Aliot, councilor of Perpignan, the largest city in the hands of the extreme right, will not have to go to the second round next Sunday having exceeded 50% of the votes. David Rachline has also been re-elected in Fréjus, with 51.33%.
Among the small cities in the south of France where the National Rally is doing well, according to polls, are Toulon and Nîmes, both important targets for Bardella and Le Pen’s party.
The National Rally candidate Laure Lavalette leads in Toulon with 39.4% of the vote, followed by centrist Josée Massi with 30.5%, according to one estimate.
In Nîmes, far-right candidate Julien Sanchez is expected to win 30.5% of the vote, tied with communist Vincent Bouget, who is estimated to have the support of most other left-wing parties.
Bardella pointed out that this is an endorsement of his policies “of good sense, of order, both in the streets and in the accounts“which translate into “an improvement in the lives of citizens.”
He also assured that all the candidates of his party who exceed 10% in this first round will remain in the second, but he appealed to the other right-wing parties to join “the wave of change” that his formation represents to “amplify the dynamics.”
There are still no vote estimates for the country’s big cities, but Le Pen’s party hopes to have good results in Nice and Marsella, while in Paris they barely have hope.
Bompard, for his part, pointed out that the LFI candidates won in cities like Roubaix or Limoges and that are “side by side” in Lilleuntil now one of the socialist bastions.
He considered his advancement the example that “a new generation, feminist and youngas is French society, enters the political life of the country” and appealed to the other candidates to support their lists to avoid the triumph of the extreme right.
