Paris (AFP)

Anne Hidalgo offers herself a new mandate: with her resolutely green campaign, the outgoing mayor PS largely wins in Paris, according to the first estimates, against a right which held its positions and a presidential majority which completely collapsed .

"SIX MORE YEARS!" (six more years), tweeted his first deputy Emmanuel Grégoire, even if the 61-year-old socialist must formally wait for the Paris Council on Friday to be elected.

According to initial estimates, Ms. Hidalgo is in the lead, obtaining between 49.3% and 50.2% of the vote, far ahead of Rachida Dati (31.7 to 32.7%) and Agnès Buzyn (from 13.7 to 16 %). It would thus collect a hundred seats for its coalition Paris en Commun, against fifty for the LR right and from 6 to 12 only for the presidential majority.

The ballot was marked as in the rest of the country by a very strong abstention.

"In a triangular", this score is "quite exceptional. We are happy," rejoiced Jean-Louis Missika, president of the Paris en Commun platform, which brings together socialists, ecologists, communists or members of Generation.s . "It means that the confidence of the Parisians who was evident in the first round has been confirmed and amplified".

The PS retains the capital after 19 years of reign: 13 years of mandate of Bertrand Delanoë then six of the outgoing mayor, his heiress and former first deputy Anne Hidalgo.

His strategy paid off. By endorsing a resolutely ecological program, the outgoing mayor contained his EELV partners in the first round, then obtained their support.

It is a triumph for a city council very contested during its mandate, criticized for the pedestrianization of the quays of the Seine, the brutal stop of the car-sharing service Autolib, the fiasco of the new version of Vélib 'or the cancellation by justice of a City advertising market with JCDecaux.

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

- Explosion in flight -

For La République en Marche (LREM), the defeat concludes a calamitous campaign where the insults have multiplied: the dissidence of Cédric Villani, the explosion in flight of the campaign of Benjamin Griveaux after the dissemination of intimate videos, then the blunders and the hesitations of his replacement, the former Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn, weakened by his explosive comments on the "masquerade" of the first round, against the backdrop of an epidemic of coronavirus.

The second round also seems even more difficult than expected.

"It's deserved," said communist Ian Brossat, member of the "Paris en Commun" coalition in Hidalgo.

On the LR side, Rachida Dati, re-elected in the first round in the 7th arrondissement, will have succeeded in mobilizing her electorate on the ground, with an energetic campaign, centered on the fundamentals of the right, in the former fiefdom of Jacques Chirac then Jean Tiberi.

But it will have lacked reserve of votes throughout this unprecedented campaign, hit hard by the Covid-19.

Confident of her strength, Anne Hidalgo therefore advanced as the big favorite of this second round, devoid of suspense. As a symbol, she had already mentioned during the week the measures of her next mandate, including the sustainability of the cycle paths set up during the deconfinement or the pedestrianization of the surroundings of the Saint-Martin canal.

Leaving to give ideas: questioned during a trip, Thursday, on a possible candidacy for the presidential election of 2022, Anne Hidalgo swore: "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 social democratic comrades are involved, I hope that it will be victorious" , she hastened to add.

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

With in particular the mission to "prepare the next electoral deadlines" ...

bat-adc-rl-pr / bfa / cb

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