France will go to the polls for municipal elections on March 15 – and again on March 22 in communes where more than one list is presented and no single list secures more than 50% of the vote.
Votes cast will determine who the mayor of the commune, arrondissement or city will be for the next six years.
Political scientist Dr Nonna Mayer, CNRS research director emerita at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po in Paris, told The Connexion that the French elections were unlike those anywhere else in Europe.
“You have 35,000 different elections, where communes of less than 1,000 people make up 85% of the total,” she said.
“Mayors have real power, and elected members of the municipal councils have votes in the Senate elections in September, giving them notable influence in national politics.
“Mayors also have a much higher approval rating among the public than other politicians.”
This year’s municipal elections come just one year before the presidential and legislative contests, and observers will use them to forecast what may occur in 2027 at national level.
For the first time, all electoral lists must contain an equal number of male and female candidates, a requirement Dr Mayer says is significant as it ensures municipal councils more accurately represent their communes.
The method for determining which lists may enter the second round has also changed – those that received at least 10% of the first round vote are now permitted to stand in the second.
“This should increase uncertainty around the result of the second round,” said Dr Mayer. “For those who enjoy politics, it should be fun to watch.”
Here we consider some of the other big issues around the elections this year.
Will the far-right RN party show up in small rural communes?
At the last legislative elections, the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) became the largest single party in parliament, winning, for example, three of Dordogne’s four seats (the fourth went to a Communist).
However, it is unlikely to perform as well in the municipal elections, especially in small communes.
Dr Mayer said the party is hoping to present between 600 and 700 lists under its own name in the 35,000 communes, and will also have party members who join sans étiquette lists, “playing the cuckoo in the nest”.
She said: “As a party, RN is not rich and well-organised, and you need to be rich and well-organised to run successful local elections.”
She added that the party still had problems with local groups selecting “black sheep” candidates, with troublesome pasts.
Although under Marine Le Pen the RN has sought to break with the antisemitic and extremist associations of the old Front National and rebrand itself as a mainstream party, it is still difficult for some candidates to declare their adherence, especially in small communes.
Will the Greens hold on to the large cities they gained in 2020?
In the 2020 elections, Green politicians, mainly grouped under the Europe Ecologie Les Verts label, surprised many by winning control of five large cities in the east of France: Annecy, Besançon, Grenoble, Lyon and Strasbourg, as well as Bordeaux.
One of the big questions will be whether they are able to hang on to their seats.
Research by Ipsos shows that in the five cities in the east they are likely to face difficulties and, in some, may not even make the second round.
A return of Socialist party grandees, including the former minister Catherine Trautmann in Strasbourg, is expected to put the Green mayors under pressure.
In Lyon, a well-known football club owner and one of France’s richest men, Jean-Michel Aulas, is standing under a united right banner, and expected to get 44% of the vote. The Greens, led by Mayor Grégory Doucet, trail in the opinion polls with 30%.
Only in Grenoble, where the existing Green mayor is not standing again, are the Greens expected to come out top in the first round.
In Bordeaux, the pressure is expected to come from the centre-right, which has united in a bid to unseat the incumbent mayor Pierre Hurmic. Former minister Thomas Cazenave is leading the charge following the death from a stroke in 2025 of former right-wing mayor Nicolas Florian.
If the Greens can hold on to the cities, it will likely mean that environmental issues will feature prominently in party political platforms in next year’s presidential election.
Will Rachida Dati become the next mayor of Paris?
Paris, with its history of revolutions and communes, was judged too politically volatile to have an elected mayor for the entire city until 1977.
The happy winner of the contest that year, the right-wing Jacques Chirac, a former prime minister, made no bones about using the mandate as a launch pad for his presidential ambitions, which came to fruition in 1995.
His successor, Jean Tiberi, was thought to lack charisma, and party divisions allowed the Socialist Bertrand Delanoë to continue for 13 years. He was followed by the present mayor, Anne Hidalgo, also a Socialist.
She is not standing this year, after her heavy defeat in the 2022 presidential election, and Emmanuel Grégoire, a senior socialist at City Hall, has struggled to establish a public profile independent of her.
He faces a broadly united right-wing list led by Rachida Dati, a former justice minister under Nicolas Sarkozy and now France’s culture minister. A nationally recognised and combative political figure, she could pose a serious challenge in a city long governed by the left.
Will the RN win a large city?
After the 2020 municipal elections, Perpignan was the only city of more than 100,000 inhabitants among the roughly 15 communes controlled by the RN.
This year the party is targeting its traditional strongholds in northern France and the south-east.
Nice is widely seen as one of the RN’s most plausible prospects for capturing a major city.
The incumbent mayor, Christian Estrosi – a former minister and former president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region – is aligned with the centre-right Horizons party. He is being challenged by a right-wing alliance backed by the RN and led by Eric Ciotti, a former colleague from their days in Les Républicains.
Once allies, the two are now openly at odds, and the campaign has taken on a particularly confrontational tone. Some observers say the split on the right could pave the way for an RN win.
The RN has also identified Toulon, Menton and Marseille as key targets in the south-east.
Toulon has a history of strong far-right support, and Menton has also returned high scores for the RN in recent elections. In Marseille, persistent drug-related violence has become a central campaign issue, which could favour a party campaigning on a tougher security platform.
Dr Mayer also says the RN could win in Calais, reflecting its support in the north.
