French local elections: Are the electoral alliances strong enough to defeat the far right?

What’s the story and why does it matter?

Polls consistently show France’s mayors are the country’s most trusted politicians and, while municipal elections often focus on local matters, they measure support for political parties, shape national momentum and can show which themes resonate with voters.

Held every six years, the municipal ballots are being watched particularly closely this time around because of next year’s election that will decide who succeeds Emmanuel Macron as France’s president; polls so far suggest it could well be the RN’s candidate, whether that is Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen.

Municipal election results are notoriously difficult to predict – partly because pollsters do not always pick up on the issues that decide them, but also because every candidate list that scores 10% or more in the first round advances to the second round.

In addition, lists that score at least 5% can merge with larger lists. This system often leads to three- or even four-way runoffs, paving the way for electoral alliances aimed at helping or hindering particular parties and making the second round highly unpredictable.

How strong is the RN and where might it do well?

The far-right, anti-immigration party performed badly in the last municipal votes in 2020, but subsequently did very well in European and then snap parliamentary elections in 2024, becoming the largest single party in France’s national assembly.

The RN and its allies currently control only a dozen or so councils and just one city with a population of more than 100,000, Perpignan. It is treating these elections as a warmup for the 2027 race, aiming to strengthen its existing hold and expand into larger urban areas in particular.

The party is fielding a record 650 lists, including 33 of its 119 members of parliament. The key question, however, is likely to be whether it will be able to strike alliances between the two rounds with other parties, which for decades have joined forces to keep it out.

There are telling signs that France’s so-called Republican front – which has kept a cordon sanitaire around the far right – is under severe strain, certainly at the municipal level, with several leading local politicians appearing to suggest that they could be tempted into teaming up with the RN after this Sunday’s vote.

The RN is targeting the southern city of Toulon, which it held (under its previous name, the National Front) from 1995 to 2001, and has high hopes in Nîmes and Marseille, where its candidate, Franck Allisio, is neck-and-neck with the Socialist mayor, Benoît Payan.

Another key test of which way conservative voters will turn is the Riviera city of Nice, where the present mayor, Christian Estrosi, from Macron’s centrist alliance, is up against Éric Ciotti, the former leader of the centre-right Les Républicains who is now an RN ally.

What about Macron’s centrists and the left?

Macron’s Renaissance party controls few local councils, limiting the potential for an anti-government vote, and is fielding a reduced number of lists – just seven are headed by Renaissance, against nearly 250 in 2020 (when it was known as La République en marche).

Instead, the deeply unpopular president’s party is hoping to form alliances, mainly with the centre-right, to keep a foothold in local government. One race to watch, however, is the port city of Le Havre, where the result could prove critical to the 2027 presidential race.

Édouard Philippe, Macron’s prime minister from 2017 to 2002 and at present probably the political centre’s most credible unifying candidate against the far right next year, is battling to be re-elected mayor – but could lose in the second round to a moderate left alliance.

The moderate broad left, including the Greens, did well across France in 2020 but is now a weaker force nationally and it is not clear whether it can hold on to cities it seized then, such as ⁠the Socialist (PS) gains of Nantes and Montpellier, or the Greens’ Lyon and Strasbourg.

Further left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical France Unbowed (LFI) is targeting northern towns including Roubaix and Seine-Saint-Denis outside Paris. The PS has refused a national alliance with the increasingly divisive Mélenchon, but some local tie-ups are likely.

Elsewhere, however, animosity between the PS and LFI is running high. In Marseille, the radical left party’s candidate, Sébastien Delogu, has insisted he will not stand aside in the second round, which Payan has warned could split the left vote and hand the city to the RN.

Which way will Paris swing?

New rules in France’s three biggest cities – Paris, Marseille and Lyon – mean voters will elect their city council directly this time round, rather than choosing representatives from their individual arrondissement who will form a central panel.

The support of the radical left could be essential if the PS is to keep control of the French capital, which it has run since 2001, with the outgoing Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, presiding over Paris city hall for the past decade.

Hidalgo’s chosen successor, Emmanuel Grégoire, heading a list of Socialists, Greens and Communists, is up against Rachida Dati, the right-wing Les Républicains’ candidate backed by some centrists who recently resigned as culture minister to focus on the Paris race.

The centrists of Philippe’s Horizons party are also running their own candidate, Pierre-Yves Bournazel, who is backed by Macron’s Renaissance. And the situation is complicated by an unexpectedly strong run from a far-right candidate, Sarah Knafo.

As elsewhere, the outcome in Paris will depend on the alliances candidates make – and voters support – for the second round. The capital has so far proved far right-proof and looks set to remain so. How far that remains true for the rest of France is unclear.