Paris (AFP)

The decision to hold the second round of municipal elections in June or postpone it to the fall "will be shared by the government with political forces and Parliament," said Jacqueline Gourault, Minister of Territorial Cohesion, on Wednesday.

"We await the report of the Scientific Council" by May 23, on which the Prime Minister will rely to decide on the continuation of the electoral process, she reminded the Delegation to communities of the Senate.

"It is a decision that will be shared by the government with the political forces and with the Parliament to know if we can make these elections before the summer or if it is more reasonable to do it after the summer", a- she continued.

Scheduled initially on March 22, the second round, which concerns about 5,000 municipalities, was postponed until the day after the first due to the health crisis.

"We feel that today, in the situation where we are at the beginning of the deconfinement, a certain number of people seem rather to think that if we could make the elections before the summer it would be a good thing" , said the Minister.

Especially since "the Council of State took a very clear position by saying that if the elections were held after the summer, it would be necessary, for the municipalities which did not finish their election, to repeat two turns".

According to Ms. Gourault, some of those "who think that the elections should be held at the end of June also think that it would be much simpler for the definitive establishment of intercommunalities".

"We know how important their role is in economic recovery in the broad sense, the revival of construction sites, works throughout the territory," she said, recalling that communities represent 70% of public investment.

Only 154 community councils (of agglomerations, communities of communes ...) out of a total of 1,259 were fully elected on March 15 and will be able to take office before the end of May.

During the report of the Council of Ministers, government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye said that after consulting the scientific council, the decision on the rest of the electoral process "will be the subject of a passage before the two assemblies ".

© 2020 AFP