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Nathalie, a market trader in her 40s, had woken early to prepare a pan of paella rice. She was spooning it into tubs at a market in southern Marseille last week when a crowd of far-right canvassers approached, promising cleaner and safer streets if she voted for them in the local elections.
“Our cash tin was stolen right here at Christmas time,” Nathalie said. “I’ve had a bag stolen too. It tends to happen at the end of the day, around 7pm. I worry for the elderly grandmas. I had a necklace ripped off me in the city centre once.”
Nathalie said she usually voted for the traditional right but felt Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) was now a good choice. “We’ve never tried them, so now we can give them a chance. I hope they can do something on security,” she said.
Suzanne, 80, a retired pharmacist doing her shopping in a southern neighbourhood of the Mediterranean port city said she had also spent a lifetime supporting the conservative parties of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, but, like many of her affluent neighbours, was shifting to the far right. “I’ve never voted RN before, but I’m going to try it,” she said. “They are more energetic and efficient than the others.”
On Sunday, France will vote in the first round of local elections seen as a test of the political temperature ahead of next year’s crucial presidential election. With Emmanuel Macron’s two terms in office coming to an end, it is uncertain who will head Europe’s second-largest economy.
With its multicultural history of immigration and 5 million tourists a year, Marseille, France’s second city, has become a key focus of the campaign after its leftwing mayor, Benoît Payan, warned the far right was polling so high it could take city hall.
“If Marseille falls into the RN’s hands, it would be an earthquake for France,” said Payan, whose Printemps Marseillais group, a leftwing coalition including Socialists and Greens, won the city in 2020 after 25 years of the traditional right.
“Victory is possible,” said Jordan Bardella, the RN party head and potential 2027 presidential candidate, as he toured Marseille last week.
The RN has focused on municipal policing and security in the face of Marseille’s deadly drug-trafficking gangs, which the far-right has likened to a South American-style mini narco-state.
“This is about bringing back order,” said Franck Allisio, the RN’s mayoral candidate as he canvassed in Marseille’s southern 9th arrondissement.
Allisio, 45, a member of parliament for a constituency west of Marseille, was a ministerial adviser on the traditional right during Sarkozy’s presidency, before joining Le Pen in 2015. His suggestions for Marseille include a special timed-access pass to local beaches for families and older people, designed to keep out “delinquents ... listening to loud music and smoking joints”.
That the RN is the main opposition challenger in Marseille for the March vote is significant because French local elections – particularly in large cities – are not typically the far right’s strength.
For the past 20 years, the biggest city run by the RN has been Perpignan, near the Spanish border, with a population of 121,000. Winning Marseille, with a population of almost 900,000, would be hailed by the party as a step towards taking the French presidency next year.
But Marseille – unlike Paris – has been building a sizeable far-right vote for many years. In the 2024 snap general election, the RN and its far-right allies tripled their seats in Marseille, winning three of the city’s seven parliament positions. Marseille remains one of the most segregated cities in France, with a large income gap between its wealthy neighbourhoods and the low-income communities on high-rise estates or in decaying city centre buildings. More than one in four people in Marseille live below the poverty line. More than 13% of main residences are classed as slums.
Politicians on all sides are describing the close mayoral race as a battle for Marseille’s identity. Historically the city has welcomed immigration from north Africa, Italy, Armenia and Comoros; it has a large Muslim community and one of the biggest urban populations of Jewish people in Europe.
The left says the RN is an anti-immigration party that is racist and xenophobic and at odds with the city. The leftwing city hall recently renamed a boulevard in honour of Ibrahim Ali, a 17-year-old Marseille high school student who was shot dead on his way home from a rap rehearsal in 1995 by an activist putting up posters for Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National, since renamed as the RN.
In northern Marseille, the densely populated 13th and 14th arrondissements are made up of a patchwork of historic village-style neighbourhoods and high-rise housing estates. Like Paris, Marseille has a city mayor, and several smaller district mayors. In this area, the far-right Stéphane Ravier won the district mayor position for the Front National in 2014 and held the position until 2017. He was convicted on appeal this year for an illegal conflict of interest in hiring his son to the mayor’s office and is now appealing to France’s highest court. His niece, Sandrine D’Angio, who took over from him and was also convicted of favouritism in office, denies the charges, and is appealing against the verdict. She is currently the local candidate for the RN.
“The RN already ran this sector of Marseille – daily life didn’t get better, on the contrary it got worse,” said Tina Biard-Sansonetti, candidate for district mayor for Printemps Marseillais.
Agnès, a local childminder and centrist voter, said: “There’s feeling of disgust towards all politicians in general that could affect voter turn-out.”
Mohamed Arouel, 21, a law student, who grew up here, is running as a councillor for Printemps Marseillais. “The RN’s values are the absolute antithesis of this very mixed neighbourhood,” he said. He felt it was crucial that younger voters did not abstain.
The Marseille mayoral race reflects broader problems across France, namely access to public services. Five years ago, Macron announced the state would invest €5bn (£4.3bn) into a special Marseille plan to address gaps in services, including the city’s dangerously dilapidated school buildings and patchy public transport, as well as police and justice resources against drug crime. Printemps Marseillais says 27 schools have been built or fully renovated, while the municipal police have been doubled to 700 officers.
The RN is far from certain to win Marseille. Much depends on who makes the second round runoff, and whether Payan’s left would come to an understanding with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left La France Insoumise to take an anti-RN position. The RN has benefited so far from a poor campaign by the traditional right.
But Marseille is just one of several southern French towns and cities targeted by the far-right. Along the coast, in Nice, France’s fifth biggest city, Éric Ciotti, who quit as leader of the traditional right’s party, Les Républicains (LR), to join forces with Le Pen in 2024, is hoping to win the city from his bitter rival and one-time rightwing ally, Christian Estrosi.
Vincent Martigny, professor of politics at Côte d’Azur University, said a key factor in Marseille and Nice was a union of the right and far right coming from grassroots voters.
“Voters from Les Républicains party – whose party leadership has taken positions that are increasingly radical and closer to the RN – are thinking: ‘There’s no problem voting RN because in any case the LR leadership for the past decade has been very strongly radicalising, so we’re pretty close on the most important issues’.”
Martigny cautioned that local votes reflected local issues, not national political ideology, but said the RN would describe any potential Nice or Marseille win as a sign of a “national dynamic” or “stepping stone” to the presidency.
Back in northern Marseille, Monique Cordier, a former teacher and optician canvassing for Marseille’s leftwing mayor, said: “An RN win is not at all a given. I frankly don’t think they’ll win. It’s not in the Marseille mentality to be racist.”
