Paris (AFP)

Arriving at the head in nine districts out of seventeen during the first round, Anne Hidalgo can calmly envisage the second round of municipal elections in Paris, reinforced by her alliance with environmentalists ... and the setbacks of The Republic on the move.

Tuesday, these are lists merged between those of the outgoing PS mayor and those of Europe ecology-The Greens, led in the first round by David Belliard, which were submitted to the prefecture.

"We found agreement on the three themes we have been working on for several days: the project, governance and the lists," campaign director of the outgoing mayor Emmanuel Grégoire told AFP. "We had an ecological and social project and we knew that a coalition was necessary. We are doing it today with Anne Hidalgo," said Mr. Belliard in an interview with the Parisian.

The two new allies appeared together for the first time in the campaign Tuesday afternoon, sitting down on a terrace just reopened in the 9th arrondissement. Asked about the place given to EELV in the executive, Anne Hidalgo reported that the agreement provided for "assistants and a district town hall, we will see" which one.

The only mathematics promises a victorious boulevard for the carriage on June 28, while the Hidalgo lists came first in the first round (29.33%), ahead of those of the LR Rachida Dati (22.72%), of the walker Agnès Buzyn (17.26%) and Mr. Belliard (10.79%).

Better still: the socialist came out on top in nine out of seventeen districts, without actually being threatened in its bastions - a big eastern half of the capital.

Admittedly, the outgoing collected five points less than in the first round of 2014. But the underperformance seems relative compared to the promises of rout made by her opponents a year ago, after the failures of the change of provider of the Vélib, the abolition of Autolib or the closure to motor traffic of part of the tracks on the banks, conspired by the oppositions.

Since then, the crash of the Griveaux candidacy and then the setbacks of its replacement Agnès Buzyn have finished showering LREM's hopes of conquering a capital yet deemed to be close at hand after the excellent scores of the presidential movement in the 2017 legislative elections and in 2019 European.

And if The Republicans, led by Rachida Dati, can congratulate themselves on an honorable score from the mayor of the 7th arrondissement - the only one in the capital to have been re-elected in the first round - their vote reserves seem meager to be able to hope to remove the 'City Hall. Especially since any hint of alliance between LREM and LR, as notably imagined in the 5th arrondissement, was aborted by the two partisan staffs.

- Rallies -

Like many outgoing mayors, Anne Hidalgo also intends to capitalize on a bonus for continuity, reinforced by the coronavirus crisis.

The massive enthusiasm for cycling has, for example, enabled him to speed up the calendar for creating cycle paths. However, the conversion in less than twenty-four hours of the rue de Rivoli, one of the main east-west arteries of the center of the capital, to almost all-bike - taxis and buses are also authorized to circulate there - has never raised anything but soft questions from his opponents.

Formerly considered to be divisive, the outgoing thus played with a front that was nonetheless nourished by "Everything except Hidalgo" and now imposes itself as a rallyer: the ex-LREM deputy Aurélien Taché supported him, part immersed in an iceberg of the historic left wing of La République en Marche, which had called from the start not to give up an alliance with the outgoing mayor.

Cédric Villani, dissident LREM, does not appear in any way as a threat after his modest score in the first round: 7.88%.

If she were to be re-elected mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo would impose herself as one of the triumphant survivals of an always convalescent PS.

Thinking about the presidential election of 2022? She swears not. "Yet, on the left, there will be only it," predicts a minister.

© 2020 AFP