Paris (AFP)

Could the Socialists lose Paris after 19 years of reign? Mayor PS Anne Hidalgo leaves ultra-favorite Sunday for the second round of municipal elections against the outsider Rachida Dati (LR) and the walker Agnès Buzyn, barely in the polls, and is already preparing for the next.

The first round on March 15 had given a clear advantage to the socialist mayor elected in 2014, who came out on top (29.3%) ahead of Rachida Dati (22.7%) and Agnès Buzyn (17.3%). Since then, the ranking remains unchanged in all opinion polls conducted in the inter-lap.

At La République en Marche (LREM), defeat is now almost recorded after a campaign deemed cursed: after the Villani dissent, the crash of the Griveaux candidacy and the late arrival in the campaign of Agnès Buzyn, the declarations of the former - Minister of Health, who had judged the day after the first round that maintaining the holding of the poll was a "masquerade", have finished destroying all hope of victory.

On the LR side, however, we do not admit defeat even if the equation seems tricky to win the capital, once strong fiefdom of Jacques Chirac.

"The second round is not folded, and the third, even less," said Rachida Dati, interviewed on Friday morning on France Info.

What comfort the left, and Anne Hidalgo, who began to shell out the measures of her next term even before the holding of the second round.

"The question of ecology and that of the social are part of the foundation of what we want to continue to build in Paris", warned Thursday the socialist candidate - whose lists have merged with those of EELV - and who wishes "perpetuate the cycle paths" put in place during deconfinement, "pedestrianize the surroundings of the Saint-Martin canal" and take social measures "to avoid the shocks of layoffs".

- "Sustainable political structure" -

After a mandate punctuated by obstacles, Anne Hidalgo is thus preparing for a brilliant victory.

Better still: the outgoing mayor dreams of conquering two arrondissements, the 5th, once stronghold of Jean Tiberi (mayor of Paris from 1995 to 2001), and the 9th arrondissement, which fell to the right in 2014.

To help him, the heavyweights of the Socialist Party did not skimp: the former PS mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, came out of his silence and walked the streets of the Ve in mid-June alongside the left candidate Marie-Christine Lemardeley, while Lionel Jospin sent a message of support to Ms. Hidalgo.

Former walkers have also followed suit, such as Aurélien Taché in the ninth, or the deputy Matthieu Orphelin in the Vè. Even the MEP Pascal Durand, elected on the Renaissance list carried by LREM, now supports the socialist candidate in this posh arrondissement on the left bank.

Ecologists, communists, elected representatives of Generations, socialists, close to Cédric Villani and former LREM ... calls to vote for Ms. Hidalgo are increasing, sometimes giving this new "coalition" the appearance of a "support committee".

Leaving to give ideas: questioned during a trip, Thursday, on a possible presidential candidacy of 2022, Anne Hidalgo swears that "especially not!".

"But I really hope that, on Sunday evening, there will be a major political fact in this country: that this vague progressive environmentalist, in which many socialist and socio-democratic comrades are involved, I hope that it will be victorious" , she hastened to add.

In the meantime, its campaign platform, "Paris en Commun", will become a "perennial political structure" and its current president, Jean-Louis Missika, calls for the creation of a "federation" with the citizen lists poised to win in several large cities.

Its mission will be to "prepare the next electoral deadlines for 2021, departmental and regional". And, ultimately, presidential.

© 2020 AFP