Paris and Marseille open. Second round of local elections raises the temperature of the electorate one year before the presidential elections in France

One of the big unknowns is whether the far-right Reagrupamento Nacional (RN) will be able to conquer its first major city; the biggest candidate is Marseille, the second largest municipality in the country, where the RN candidate was less than two percentage points away from the current socialist mayor in the first round

French voters return to the polls this Sunday for the second and final round of municipal elections of increased importance, which will not only define who will govern France’s largest cities until 2032 but also take the temperature of the electorate one year before the presidential elections, in which Emmanuel Macron, the current head of state, cannot run again for the position.

Despite their different nature from national elections, local elections promise to serve as an indicator of which parties voters are most willing to support and also about which agreements and coalitions these same parties are willing to make to occupy power.

The majority of France’s approximately 35,000 municipalities elected their local leaders last weekend, in the first round of local elections, which take place every six years in the country. However, only this Sunday will the races in the most disputed districts, including the largest cities in the country, be decided.

25 years later, PS on the brink of defeat in Paris?

Among the electoral battles that are attracting the most attention are, obviously, Pariswhich has been under the governance of the Socialist Party (PS, center-left) for 25 years. After a very popular mandate, socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo announced her entry into reform, opening space for a fierce race for power in the capital – where, in the first round, former Minister of Culture Rachida Dati, from the right, came in second place (25.46%), behind socialist Emmanuel Grégoire (37.98%).

Candidates from the far left, center and far right all got more than 10% of the vote a week ago, giving them direct entry into the second round – but since then, far right candidate Sarah Knafo has dropped out and centrist Pierre-Yves Bournazel has merged his list with Dati’s, potentially helping to galvanize right-wing voters, from the most extreme to the most moderate, against the socialists.

The former Minister of Culture also has the support of Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right Reagrupamento Nacional (RN), and putative candidate for next year’s presidential elections – who said he supports Dati against the “existential threat” represented by the center-left.

On the left, there is no similar type of alliance, with Grégoire refusing to join an electoral coalition with Sophia Chikirou, the candidate of França Insubmissa (LFI, extreme left). This is, in fact, the general scenario in France, where the traditional left has refused to form partnerships with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s LFI.

If voters who voted for Knafo or Bournazel in the first round give their vote to Dati, the right should be able to easily overcome the socialists’ advantage and will prove the potential of a broader alliance on the right, with possible repercussions in the future presidential campaign.

Far-right with an eye on Marseille and Nice

France’s second largest city could become a litmus test for Bardella and Le Pen’s RN, whose candidate, Stephane Ravier, reached second place (35.02%) in the first round of municipal elections. He appears separated from Benoît Payan, the current socialist mayor, by less than two percentage points (36.7%). To conquer Marseille It would mark a turning point for the far right, which until today has only governed small and medium-sized cities.

After the first round, as happened in Paris, Payan rejected creating a united front with the LFI, which was in fourth place, to block the RN. In view of this, the far-left candidate, Sébastien Delogu, decided to abandon the race under the argument that the essential thing is to stop the rise of the far-right, criticizing the “irresponsibility and sectarianism” of the current mayor for rejecting a broad left-wing coalition with the same objective.

Martine Vassal, candidate for the right-wing Republican party (LR), who came in third place, decided to remain in the race, despite RN’s requests for her to withdraw.

RN doesn’t just have its eye on Marseille, its potential big prize. In Nicethe fifth largest city in France, the party has the potential to win the mayor’s office in partnership with Eric Ciotti, a conservative who led The Republicans until his expulsion from the party in 2024, after proposing an alliance with the extreme right for that year’s early legislative elections.

After his expulsion, Ciotti formed his own party, the UDR, which is now running for the municipality of Nice in partnership with the RN – a coalition that, in the first round a week ago, managed to position itself ahead of the current center-right mayor, Christian Estrosi, with more than 12 percentage points ahead.

This first victory is also due, at least in part, to the fact that the current leader of LR, Bruno Retailleau, refused to support Estrosi in the face of what he considered to be a “damaging” campaign for political centrism. Retailleau’s position is being seen as a potential preparation for a future alliance with the RN for the 2027 presidential elections, which would put an end to the historic cordon sanitaire of the main French parties on the far right.

As in Nice, RN also maintains an advantage in Toulona city in the south of the country where the extreme right has been elected in the past, specifically in 1995. There, the RN is competing against two other lists from the so-called moderate right, which after the first round decided to merge to try to block the victory of the extreme right in this second round.

Unlikely alliances and some surprises

Historically, RN’s leadership in electoral races mobilizes voters from different factions that oppose the extreme right, including many who do not vote in the first round. It remains to be seen whether this effect will be observed again this Sunday, in Toulon as in other districts and cities where RN holds a more or less marginal advantage, as is the case of Nimes.

And if the far right seems to be on course for some important victories in these local elections, the far left appears to be in the opposite position, with a majority of the electorate looking to the party as the political force to be stopped at any cost – as a late February survey already demonstrated, in which 63% of those interviewed said they were committed to preventing the LFI from coming to power – as opposed to 45% of those interviewed for the same survey, who said the same in relation to Bardella and Le Pen’s RN.

It was in this context that we saw the emergence of some unlikely alliances for these municipal elections, for example in Strasbourgwhere PS candidate Catherine Trautmann joined Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party to face a coalition between the LFI and The Greens, with the decision drawing harsh criticism from the party’s own leadership.

Em Lillethe alliance was different, but the objective was similar, with the PS joining the Greens to try to block the far left candidate, who a week ago won a very close second place to the current socialist mayor, Arnaud Deslandes.

Despite these coalitions, there are municipalities where, given the results of the first round, the traditional left decided to form alliances with the LFI to reinforce the chances of victory in this second round, particularly in Avignon, Brest e Nantes.

Em Lyonwhere a far-right student got into a fight with young anti-fascists, the LFI felt the direct impact of this case at the polls, still managing to qualify for the second round of local elections, behind Os Verdes, in power, and also the center-right. Given the result, the far-left party decided to ally with the center-left, in what analysts say could alienate some moderate voters this Sunday.

In the opposite direction, the LFI managed to stay ahead of the alliance between the PS and Os Verdes in Toulousethe fourth largest city in France, becoming the center-right’s main opponent in the last round of the local elections. In Roubaixin the north of the country, the extreme left was also close to winning in the first round, advancing to the second without the need to form alliances to compete with the center-right, after the center-left list came in a distant third.