Second round of municipal elections: confident leavers, En Marche patine - France 24

Paris (AFP)

After the "clearing" of the 2017 presidential election, the logic of local elections resumed its rights before the second round of municipal elections, on June 28, with entrants from the left and from the right firmly established and the macronists relegated to the background.

The right on its own ground

The Republicans garnered success in the first round in cities with more than 9,000 inhabitants. "In view of the 2014 results, they are the ones who had the most to lose and those are the ones who are doing the best," said Jean-Daniel Lévy, Political / Opinion Director at Harris Interactive, AFP. The dynamics in favor of leavers played fully and could be accentuated in the second round after the coronavirus sequence, during which the existing teams struggled to manage the daily life. With a singularity: in several big cities, like Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, LR finds itself associated with the candidates of La République en Marche, which "blurs the message a little". In Paris, Rachida Dati (LR, 22.7%), who came second behind Anne Hidalgo (PS, 29.3%), did not let go of the affair and counted on the abstainers of March 15 to win the right.

The marginalized macronists

Another hot spot, the spotlight will be on Le Havre, where the disunity of environmentalists and the communist candidate Jean-Paul Lecoq (second with 35.8%) could pave the way for Edouard Philippe, largely in the lead after the first tower (43.6%).

A success of the Prime Minister (ex-LR), who ruled the city from 2010 to 2017, would be a rare satisfaction for the macronists at the end of municipal elections which flower the stampede for the presidential party. "There is a logic of intermediate voting where generally the party in power is heavily handicapped when the executive is unpopular", underlines Jérôme Sainte-Marie, of the PollingVox institute. The LREM candidates disperse according to alliances, rather to the right, and the macronists are not sorry to end these municipal officials who have above all shown their difficulties in establishing themselves in the territories.

The left holds firm

Inaudible at the national level, the left does better than resist in its fiefdoms. "There are not many cities where the outgoing socialist mayor is in real danger. The PS has serious chances of doing better than in 2014 where they had lost many cities", according to Frédéric Dabi, deputy director general of Ifop. In Dijon, Clermont-Ferrand, Nantes, Rennes or even Lille, the socialists approach the second round with confidence. And keep Paris, where Anne Hidalgo has strengthened its status as a favorite by joining forces with environmentalists, would be a resounding success for the PS. Trust also in the Communist Party, which estimates that it can keep most of its 61 cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants.

The push of EELV environmentalists in the first round, on the other hand, created tensions during the discussions between two rounds and the left / greeners' rally failed in Lille or in Le Havre. "They made high scores in cities where they were very little established, such as Lille, Marseille, Strasbourg", and are in a position to confirm their good results in an election where ecological themes speak to voters, believes Jean-Daniel Lévy .

The RN bet on Perpignan

For the National Gathering which won on March 15 in most of the ten cities it owned, the issue comes down to its score in Perpignan (120,000 inhabitants), where its candidate Louis Aliot, led with 35 , 6% of the vote, will be faced with a sort of refusal front around the outgoing LR mayor Jean-Marc Pujol (18.5%). Elsewhere, the RN is severely handicapped in a ballot where in many municipalities the offer is limited to lists of local interest.

Three weeks to convince

For all, the challenge now is to mobilize abstainers from the first round (55.3%). But the pollsters remain cautious. "If the deconfinement continues to go well, if the French put the Covid-19 issue at a distance and if we find campaign themes, perhaps participation will be stronger than in the first round", says Frédéric Dabi , which distinguishes "the seeds of a rebound" in recent surveys.

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