National political context
Voting takes place in 35,000 towns, cities and villages across France.
The center-left Socialist Party has been campaigning in 2,960 communes and competing for mayor in more than 1,300. In comparison, the far-right National Rally party (National Assembly or RN) presents its lists of candidates in around 600 different areas of France.
In many of the smaller communes the candidate lists – if there is more than one – are not affiliated with any specific party.
The vote for mayors and local councilors comes in the broader context of French presidential elections scheduled for next year. President Emmanuel Macron will have served the maximum of two consecutive five-year terms when elections are held in April 2027, leaving the field open for a successor.
Macron has called early legislative elections in 2024, hoping to consolidate his majority in parliament. But the strategy backfired on his center-right bloc, which finished in third place, along with the far-right, anti-immigration National Rally party (National Assembly or RN) becoming the largest party in the lower house.
The National Rally now hopes to be better positioned than ever to win the presidency in 2027, whether by fielding three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, 57, or her deputy and new face of the party, Jordan Bardella, 30.
Le Pen is likely to run unless an appeals court upholds her ban from holding office over a fake jobs scandal in the European Parliament, in which case Bardella becomes the far-right candidate.
Former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, who as prime minister helped guide France through the Covid pandemic, hopes to retain his position as mayor of the northern port city of Le Havre, a position he has held since 2014. He and his center-right Horizons The party may be one of the candidates most likely to challenge whoever the RN contender is in 2027.
Read moreThe race for Paris: Will more armed police and cameras make the city safer?
Who will reign in Paris?
An ambitious right-winger hopes to address Paris City Hall after 25 years in which the left was in charge of the French capital. Former Culture Minister Rachida Dati, a 60-year-old woman of Moroccan-Algerian origin facing corruption accusations, wants to become the second consecutive mayor, replacing socialist Anne Hidalgo.
Dati’s main rival is Socialist Party candidate Emmanuel Grégoire, 48, a deputy from Hidalgo. But Hidalgo’s legacy may not help him. While it established miles of bike lanes in the capital and helped make the Seine River swimmable for the 2024 Summer Olympics, it remains controversial; As a presidential candidate in 2022, she won just 1.7 percent of the vote in the first round before throwing her support behind Macron.
Read moreThe race for Paris: how the capital’s real estate crisis could determine the city’s next mayor
What is happening with the extreme right?
In the southern city of Marseille, the country’s current leftist mayor, Benoît Payan, will go head-to-head with far-right candidate Franck Allisio in the first round.
Marta Lorimer, professor of politics at Cardiff University, said the far-right party will try to “establish itself” further in the municipal elections. “For them it is important that they do well in the local elections, because then they can use it to establish some more credibility at the national level,” he said.
In French elections, including the early elections of 2024, various left-wing parties – from the hardline France Insoumise (La France Insoumise or LFI), through the communists to the center-left Socialist Party – have often united, however hesitantly, to prevent a far-right victory in the second and final round.
But the fatal beating of a right-wing neo-Nazi activist last month during clashes between far-right and far-left youth groups has led some on the left to give up joining far-left groups.
Dominique de Villepin, a former conservative prime minister, described the incident as France’s “Charlie Kirk moment,” a reference to the ultra-conservative activist shot dead in the United States last year.
But de Villepin warned that the incident could be exploited to “delegitimize part of the political spectrum and turn the triumphant far right into a victim.”
Read moreHow the death of far-right activist Quentin Deranque became France’s ‘Charlie Kirk moment’
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
