The results of the second round of France’s municipal elections are in. There is a little good news for everybody, which is another way of saying that the political landscape is indeed fragmented and no clear way out of the morass created by the collapse of Macronism has yet appeared.
Before proceeding, an important caveat: the participation in this year’s municipal elections was lower than usual, suggesting widespread dissatisfaction with the range of available choices. That said, the best news of the evening was undoubtedly the unexpectedly good performance of the left–or to be more precise, the left excluding La France Insoumise–in France’s largest cities, Paris, Marseilles, and Lyon. All three were captured by the non-LFI left, which also held on in Lille. Furthermore, the transfer of votes between the first and second rounds shows clearly that voters make their own choices and are not swayed by the consignes emanating from the parties they chose in the first round. The Paris result was a clear rebuke to Macron, who backed the loser Rachida Dati at the expense of his “own” candidate, Bournazel, whom he forced to drop out. But Bournazel’s voters didn’t buy the maneuver and went for the Socialist Grégoire in large numbers, handing the latter a resounding victory.
That said, the other clear lesson for the left is that LFI has become toxic: the “new popular front” that worked a couple of times in extremis in the past had the effect of putting off voters who might have been willing to back a “non-LFI left” candidate but simply refused to be associated with the party of Mélenchon, whose all-azimuth hostility has had the effect of making his party more of a pariah than the FN used to be. LFI did capture one large city, Roubaix, but it lost in other places where it was thought to have a chance, either alone or in coalition with other factions of the left. What this implies for the presidential is not easy to work out, however. Mélenchon is clearly banking on a plethora of candidates from the center-left and center-right, whose inability to coalesce would give him a shot at squeaking through to a second-round confrontation with the candidate of the RN (probably Bardella). Meanwhile, the elements of the left that want to bar the door against Mélenchon, including Glucksmann, Hollande, Cazeneuve, Guedj, and Delga, have had their hand strengthened, but the PS is still controlled by Faure, whose ambivalence toward LFI has unfortunately become his defining characteristic.
On the right, the RN did not capture any of the larger cities where it had a chance of breaking through. Toulon, in particular, marked a signal failure. On the other hand, the RN did significantly increase the number of cities and towns it controls and also expanded the number of its municipal councilors, which will affect future senatorial elections. Eric Ciotti, the former LR leader who is now a vassal of the RN, won the prize for which he sold his soul: he is now mayor of Nice.
As for LR, it maintains control of a substantial number of localities, but its performance did nothing to enhance its national stature. The good news for Horizons was that Édouard Philippe was once again elected mayor of Le Havre; a failure there would probably have doomed his presidential candidacy, but his victory has done little to enhance his chances in a crowded field, where he remains for the time being the putative front runner to rival Bardella.
Finally, the biggest loser of the night was obviously Macron. His attempt to push Dati across the finish line in Paris was only the latest of his political misjudgments. He is left without power and, worse, without honor, at least in the domestic arena. Internationally, he continues to stand for a strong and independent Europe, but his impotence at home diminishes his voice abroad. A presidency that began with a bang ends with a whimper.