Paris, France. France’s far-right National Rally (RN) failed to win control of any major city in Sunday’s nationwide municipal election, a setback that offered encouragement to embattled mainstream parties ahead of next year’s presidential election.
Results in major target cities
Marine Le Pen’s nationalist eurosceptic party lost in key target cities including Marseille and Toulon, although an ally, Eric Ciotti, who heads his own staunchly conservative UDR party, won in Nice, France’s fifth-largest city.
Test ahead of the presidential election
The municipal votes tested both the depth of the far right’s support base a year ahead of presidential elections to replace centrist Emmanuel Macron, and the resilience of mainstream parties in a fragmented political landscape.
Opinion polls project both Le Pen and her protege Jordan Bardella would perform strongly in the 2027 race. Le Pen is awaiting a ruling in her appeal against an embezzlement conviction before deciding whether she will run for a fourth time.
Limits of municipal vote as a forecast
The 35,000 separate municipal ballots typically focus on local issues, and their outcome does not offer a neat forecast of who will succeed Macron.
However, they can indicate trends in popularity and in the type of alliances that can be struck in an increasingly fragmented political landscape, and senior politicians from all parties were quick to claim Sunday’s outcome was good news for them.
Paris result
In Paris, Socialist Party candidate Emmanuel Gregoire fended off a challenge from conservative former minister Rachida Dati, ensuring the French capital remains in left-wing hands.
RN response and local wins
Senior RN officials rejected suggestions the party’s defeat in Toulon showed it had hit a “glass ceiling” ahead of the presidential election, saying it had won dozens of local constituencies where it previously had no presence.
“The National Rally and its candidates have achieved tonight, in this municipal election, the biggest breakthrough in its entire history,” RN chief Bardella said.
His anti-immigration party held onto the southern city of Perpignan and won in other towns such as Menton and Carcassonne, also in the south.
How do you think the municipal election results will affect alliances ahead of the next presidential vote?