{"id":675196,"date":"2026-03-23T04:15:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/675196\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T04:15:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:15:17","slug":"winners-and-losers-in-frances-municipal-elections-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/675196\/","title":{"rendered":"Winners and losers in France\u2019s municipal elections \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Ciotti:<\/strong> The new far-right mayor of Nice, the unofficial capital of the French Riviera, tried two years ago to strike a deal with Marine Le Pen\u2019s National Rally as the head of the conservative Les R\u00e9publicains. He locked himself in party headquarters to prevent a coup, but the farcical effort failed and he was booted from the movement. That gamble has paid off, handing him the keys to France\u2019s fifth-largest city.<\/p>\n

His win is also a partial victory for Le Pen and Jordan Bardella\u2019s party, which now has a powerful ally, but Ciotti\u2019s triumph was also the result of a local rivalry<\/a>. His advocacy for mass privatizations and admiration for Argentina\u2019s chainsaw-wielding libertarian President Javier Milei also doesn\u2019t align with Le Pen\u2019s self-description as being \u201cneither left nor right\u201d and defense of parts of the welfare state.<\/p>\n

The National Rally:<\/strong>\u00a0Party President Bardella said\u00a0the National Rally\u00a0\u201cachieved the greatest breakthrough in its entire history.\u201d\u00a0Le Pen said it won dozens of cities. <\/p>\n

\"\"Eric Ciotti salutes his supporters in Nice after the results of the second round of France\u2019s 2026 municipal elections on March 22, 2026. | Valery Hache\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Losers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also\u00a0the National Rally:<\/strong> There is\u00a0also\u00a0reason\u00a0for the far-right party to worry.\u00a0The two-round voting system\u00a0once again seemed to block\u00a0the National Rally from victory in key targets like\u00a0N\u00eemes\u00a0and Toulon. And after a historic showing in the first round in Marseille, the\u00a0party\u2019s\u00a0candidate was handily defeated in the runoff.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Emmanuel Macron:<\/strong> The French president had quietly thrown his weight behind Rachida Dati, his former culture minister, and former football executive Jean-Michel Aulas in Lyon. Dati conceded defeat and Aulas lost by a razor-thin margin, but he has announced a legal challenge of the result.<\/p>\n

Left-wing alliances:<\/strong> The hard-left France Unbowed and the center-left Socialist Party joined forces in cities across France to defend or capture town halls. But in Toulouse and Limoges \u2014 where Socialists backed France Unbowed candidates \u2014 as well as Clermont-Ferrand and Brest\u00a0\u2014 where hard-left candidates supported moderates \u2014 left-wing alliances lost.<\/p>\n

The Greens:<\/strong> France\u2019s environmentalists have lost control of several cities they won during the last municipal elections, held amid the Covid-19 pandemic, including the key metropolises of Strasbourg and Bordeaux. They can take some solace for now in a\u00a0narrow projected\u00a0win in Lyon, France\u2019s third-largest city, and in the Alpine city of Grenoble \u2014 both secured through local alliances with France Unbowed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou:<\/strong> The centrist former prime minister, an iconic figure in French politics, lost in his own city of Pau just months after being ousted by a parliamentary no-confidence vote in September. It could mark the end of his decades-long political career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eric Ciotti: The new far-right mayor of Nice, the unofficial capital of the French Riviera, tried two years…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":675197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[17749,148786,90,102001,8703,8704,156,8705,278883,8706,103195,26450,2851,5705,50,57335,103],"class_list":["post-675196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-cities","tag-edouard-philippe","tag-elections","tag-elections-in-europe","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-far-right","tag-france","tag-francois-bayrou","tag-french-local-elections-2026","tag-french-politics","tag-jordan-bardella","tag-macron","tag-marine-le-pen","tag-mayors","tag-news","tag-rachida-dati","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116276554970646079","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}