Paris (AFP)

Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg ... by winning a historic number of big cities, the Greens are coming out big winners in the municipal elections, a reality to which Emmanuel Macron responds by welcoming the members of the Citizens' Climate Convention on Monday.

Three months after a first round already turned upside down by the coronavirus crisis, the second round was again marked on Sunday by a record abstention, around 60%, despite exceptional health precautions and the wearing of mandatory masks at polling stations.

This disaffection of the voters, which aroused the "concern" of Emmanuel Macron, does not lessen the green wave which swept over the big cities of France, up to Paris where the outgoing socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo is renewed after having endorsed itself a resolutely green program alongside its EELV partners.

The situation is more confused in Marseille where the environmental candidate Michèle Rubirola, at the head of a left coalition, has claimed a "relative victory" after 25 years of reign of the right. But there is "no majority in Marseille" at this stage, insisted the candidate LR Martine Vassal, giving an appointment for the election of the mayor by the municipal council on Friday.

Other big cities - Grenoble, Besançon, Tours Poitiers, Annecy ... - fell into the hands of the Greens. For a long time a back-up force, they asserted themselves as the first on the left before the next electoral deadlines.

To the point that the number one of the PS Olivier Faure said he was ready, Monday morning on RTL, to line up, for the presidential, behind the candidate who "will embody the social-ecological block".

- LREM fiasco -

Meanwhile, the leader of the Greens Yannick Jadot excluded Monday on Europe 1 any entry of EELV to the government, calling Emmanuel Macron to stop being in "denial of the ecology" and to apply "without filter" and "as he promised" the 149 proposals of the Citizens Convention on the climate that he receives on Monday.

The head of state said on Sunday that he intended to provide "strong responses" and "up to the challenges and expectations".

He must generally specify, in the coming days, his stated intention of "reinventing himself" for the last two years of his mandate, with a likely reshuffle. But the results of Sunday make the ecological theme essential.

With or without Edouard Philippe? Emmanuel Macron congratulated him on his "great victory" in Le Havre, and the two heads of the executive were to see each other "for a little time alone" on Monday morning.

The triumph of environmentalists contrasts with the fiasco of La République en Marche which has won no major city and known for sole satisfaction the comfortable re-election of Edouard Philippe in Le Havre, even if the Prime Minister is not part of LREM.

"Paris is the catastrophic sum of all the mistakes that should not be made (...) It is a very good lesson to explain that when we face a difficult ballot divided, more than divided, we have no chance to win. This lesson, we are not ready to forget ", admitted the head of the LREM group to the Assembly Gilles Le Gendre on LCI.

If the Greens dominated the evening, the PS nevertheless raised its head and managed to keep Paris, Lille, where Martine Aubry imposed herself by the hair against the environmental candidate Stéphane Baly, Rennes, Nantes, Le Mans, Clermont- Ferrand, Dijon and delighted Nancy and Montpellier.

The Republicans confirmed their establishment by winning in the first round many of the cities with more than 9,000 inhabitants they controlled. Jean-Luc Moudenc is reappointed at the head of Toulouse, like Christian Estrosi in Nice.

Emmanuel Macron's main national opponent, the Rassemblement national won Perpignan. With this success, Louis Aliot gives back to Marine Le Pen's party the control of his first city of more than 100,000 inhabitants since 1995 and Toulon.

© 2020 AFP