Municipal elections in France: the far right is gaining ground but the left is holding firm in Paris

ParisThe first round of municipal elections held this Sunday in France confirms the advance of the far right. Final results will not be known until next Sunday, but Marine Le Pen's party, the National Rally (RN), has managed to advance to the second round in the vast majority of municipalities where it ran and will compete to win in city halls where it has not yet governed, such as Marseille, France's second-largest city, Nice, and Toulon. "It is a huge victory for our movement," Le Pen declared in a message to X.

In Marseille, Le Pen's candidate, Franck Allisio, obtained 35.1% of the vote, almost tied with the left-wing candidate, Benoît Payan (35.6%), according to initial projections. Despite coming in second, Allisio has a chance of winning in the second round, especially if the other left-wing candidate, Sébastien Delogu of La France Insoumise, does not join forces with Payan and, therefore, if the left-wing vote is split. The far-right candidate faces a difficult task, but it is not an impossible scenario either. Delogu, however, has called for the creation of an "anti-fascist front" to prevent the National Rally (RN) from governing. In Nice, the far-right candidate, Éric Ciotti (not a member of the National Rally but one of its allies), led the first round with 43.5% of the vote, according to partial results, a percentage that bodes well for his victory next Sunday. In Perpignan, the largest city previously held by the National Rally, the far-right mayor, Louis Aliot, swept the election with 51.4% of the vote and will be re-elected, since candidates who obtain more than 50% of the vote in the first round are automatically declared the winner. The National Rally also dominated its historical stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont, in the north of the country, where the far-right mayor was re-elected in the first round with 77.8% of the vote. Test for Le Pen

The municipal elections are a test for all parties in the lead-up to the presidential elections. But especially for Marine Le Pen's far right. The National Rally (RN) still doesn't know whether its presidential candidate will be Le Pen or her right-hand man and party president, Jordan Bardella. Everything will depend on whether the courts uphold the disqualification of the party leader. But whoever the candidate is, gaining ground in the municipal elections is key for the RN to have any chance of reaching the Élysée Palace.

The party, which historically has had little presence at the municipal level, has doubled the number of candidates it has submitted for city councils in these elections as a strategy to increase its presence across the country. The RN is clearly making progress, but the far right continues to struggle in major cities, with the exception of Marseille. In Paris and Lyon—where the left is holding its ground—its candidates haven't even made it past the first round.

In the French capital, where the Socialist Anne Hidalgo is not running for reelection, the left-wing unity candidate, Emmanuel Grégoire, has obtained more than 37% of the vote (according to projections), well ahead of the right-wing candidate and former Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati (25%) and Chikirou (12%). Dati aspired to take control of the Paris City Hall, but the first-round result makes that difficult.

System change in major cities

The leader of the most-voted list in Paris on March 22nd will likely become mayor. But it's not automatic. Major French cities are debuting a new, more proportional electoral system in these elections, designed to ensure that the leader of the most-voted list becomes mayor. Previously, voters only elected the political representatives for their district, who then voted for the mayor. This system sometimes resulted in the mayor not being from the party with the most votes. With the new system, voters cast two ballots: one to elect district councilors and the other to elect city councilors. The most-voted list will receive an additional 25% of the seats on the City Council, virtually guaranteeing that the mayor will be the candidate from the list that received the most votes. The remaining seats are distributed proportionally among the lists that obtained more than 5% of the vote.

If the far right makes gains, the division among left-wing parties will determine the results of the second round. Socialists, Greens, and Communists have opted to present joint lists to increase their chances of winning in some municipalities. This time, however, La France Insoumise (LFI), Jean-Luc Mélenchon's radical left-wing party, has remained on the sidelines. For the second round, the left will also not join forces with LFI, as MEP Raphaël Glucksmann made clear on Sunday night.