In the aftermath of a first round of municipal elections, ignored by a majority of voters worried about the spread of the coronavirus, the holding or not of the second round on March 22 is the most burning question put to the executive on Monday.

Among the some 47.7 million voters called to elect their mayor on Sunday, less than half will have slipped a ballot into the ballot box, after the government decreed on Saturday evening the closure of all "places open to the public not essential to the life of the country ". A historic figure for a generally mobilizing vote among the French.

Sunday, EELV environmentalists made a good breakthrough. They can nurture serious hopes in Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Lyon, Besançon and Grenoble in particular. The RN of Marine Le Pen confirmed, by several victories from the first round, its positions acquired in 2014 in Hénin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais), Fréjus (Var), Hayange (Moselle) or Beaucaire (Gard). He also placed himself in a position to conquer Perpignan.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe's waiver in Le Havre and the Minister of Public Accounts Gérald Darmanin's victory at Tourcoing did not hide the fact that the local establishment of LREM was not under way. The PS shone in Paris thanks to outgoing mayor Anne Hidalgo, around 30% and who seems to have ruled out the double threat of Rachida Dati (LR) and Agnès Buzyn (LREM). Finally LR, which had triumphed at the municipal elections in 2014 before collapsing from 2017, has more or less held up.

In major cities, LR Christian Estrosi came close to re-election in Nice with 47.6% of the vote. In Marseille, the succession of Jean-Claude Gaudin was much more uncertain for the candidate LR Martine Vassal, faced with a dissent, and given shoulder to shoulder with the list of left of Michèle Rubirola, in front of Stéphane Ravier (RN). In Bordeaux, the match promises to be extremely close between the outgoing mayor Nicolas Florian (LR), an ally of MoDem, and his opponent Pierre Hurmic (EELV). In Lille, outgoing PS Martine Aubry is close to 30%. And in Toulouse, outgoing Jean-Luc Moudenc, supported by LR and LREM, is well placed (35.3%).

Vote or not next Sunday

This nuanced picture has been largely overshadowed by that of the inexorable spread in France of the coronavirus epidemic. It killed 37 people on Sunday, bringing the death toll to 127 and more than 5,400 confirmed cases. Everything indicates that its progression is accelerating.

What lead the political leaders themselves to question in priority on the advisability of maintaining the second round of the municipal on March 22.

Several of them, from Yannick Jadot (Europe Ecology-The Greens) to Marine Le Pen (National Gathering) via Damien Abad (LR) and François Ruffin (LFI) have openly asked for it.

In response, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced that he would bring together "again at the beginning of the week" the scientific experts and "the representatives of the political forces" in order to take a decision.

"If the first round went according to him perfectly (...), the high rate of abstention that we record, however, testifies to the growing concern of our fellow citizens vis-à-vis the epidemic which strikes us", -he says.

The executive is under intense pressure after choosing to maintain this first round despite the sanitary context that does not spare the political class, like the president of the Republicans Christian Jacob, tested positive for coronavirus Sunday.

It is ultimately to President Emmanuel Macron that will return to decide the fate of the second round. More than the result of the ballot boxes, it was his decision to maintain the first round, after having yielded to pressure on Thursday, notably from the tenors of the right, which this weekend became as much a political as a health issue.

Beyond this debate, Emmanuel Macron must decide on the possibility of compulsory confinement of the entire population for a long time, as already decided by Italy or Spain. This would obviously settle the question of the second round.

With AFP

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