French local election results give unexpected lift to centrist parties

France’s local elections, closely watched for clues to next year’s presidential vote, have given parties of the centre a welcome and unexpected lift as the far right and radical left fell some way short of their ambitions.The 35,000 municipal ballots often focus on local survival and their outcomes do not always reflect national voting patterns, but they do show trends in popularity and suggest what kind of alliances can be struck in a fragmented political landscape.The far-right National Rally (RN), either of whose likely candidates in the 2027 race – Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen – could, polls suggest, succeed Emmanuel Macron as France’s next president, multiplied its number of councillors by 13 in Sunday’s second-round vote.The party held on to Perpignan and captured smaller southern towns including Carcassonne, Menton and Cannes. It also claimed victory in France’s resolutely conservative fifth city, Nice, through its ally, the breakaway rightwinger Éric Ciotti.But the RN failed to seize its most coveted target, Marseille, the country’s second largest city, or several others that it had high hopes of winning, including Toulon and Nîmes, puncturing a growing air of invincibility.In Paris, the Socialist party’s Emmanuel Grégoire, running on a united left platform that included the Greens, defeated the rightwing former minister Rachida Dati and the radical left La France Insoumise (LFI) to become the capital’s mayor.Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire arrives on bicycle after being elected mayor of Paris – videoThe results suggest that when the mainstream parties cooperate and organise effectively, they can still combine in a “Republican front” to block the RN, particularly in France’s larger cities where the nationalist party’s brand still repels many voters.Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s LFI, shunned by much of the mainstream left over allegations of extremism, antisemitism and violence, also had a mixed night, scoring a couple of symbolic wins but failing to make big inroads.LFI topped the ballot in the depressed municipalities of Saint-Denis, north of Paris, and Roubaix, near the Belgian border. But in Paris Grégoire won comfortably after refusing to ally with the LFI.In Marseille, the incumbent Socialist mayor, Benoît Payan, managed to see off a stiff challenge from the RN while simultaneously keeping his distance from LFI, whose candidate pulled out after the first round to help prevent a far-right victory.Benoît Payan gives his victory speech in Marseille. Photograph: Manon Cruz/ReutersWhere centre-left candidates did opt to team up with LFI candidates in local alliances that were strongly criticised by the Socialist party (PS) nationally, they were defeated in cities including Toulouse, Limoges, Clermont-Ferrand and Brest.The results suggested that while the far-left party can motivate its base, most voters see it as too radical – and that as a general rule, forming alliances with LFI is likely to do the mainstream left more electoral harm than good.For the political centre, the results were more encouraging than many had expected despite some defeats, notably in Lyon, Nice and Pau.Despite Macron’s personal unpopularity, the president’s camp and its allies scored unexpected victories in Bordeaux and Annecy and increased their influence with centrist alliances in cities including Toulouse, Angers and Limoges.Perhaps most significantly, Macron’s popular first prime minister, Edouard Philippe, arguably the most credible candidate to unite the centre and centre right against Bardella or Le Pen in 2027, held on comfortably to the port city of Le Havre.Philippe had said a presidential run would be conditional on his being re-elected mayor, and his victory will be seen as further evidence that the centre right is still in the game providing it can agree on and unite behind a single candidate.The conservative Les Républicains party can attribute its stinging defeat in the capital at least in part to the prickly personality of its candidate, Dati, and the fact that she is under investigation for corruption.But it held on to most of its municipalities and remains France’s strongest local political force. It now faces an internal fight over whether to remain an independent minority, unite with the centre or, as some seem tempted to do, court the far right.The PS and its centre-left allies retained control of France’s three largest cities, plus the northern city of Lille and Rennes in Brittany, and captured Pau in the south-west from the veteran centrist former prime minister François Bayrou.The party produced a strong performance in its key urban strongholds, including Paris which it has run since 2001, and its strategy of forging selective alliances with Greens and Communists while generally distancing itself from LFI mostly paid off.