France will hold municipal elections on March 15 and 22, votes seen as a key test ahead of next year’s presidential election.
The two-round ballot will measure the strength of the far-right National Rally (RN) and showcase what types of alliances could emerge in an increasingly fragmented landscape.
Heading nearly 35,000 communes – from major cities to villages with only a few dozen residents – mayors are France’s most trusted elected officials, seen by voters as the political figures closest to their daily concerns.
Local results can also shape national momentum and reveal which themes resonate with voters, especially when they take place just over a year before the next presidential election.
The anti-immigration, eurosceptic party, which has so far struggled to make meaningful gains at a local level, is treating the March votes as a critical step toward building momentum for the 2027 presidential ballot.
It hopes to consolidate towns it already controls and expand into larger urban areas, saying it would field about 650 lists, substantially more than in previous cycles.
Currently, only around a dozen mayors belong to, or are backed by, the RN. The far-right party only runs one city of over 100,000 inhabitants, Perpignan.
One key question ahead of the 2027 vote is what alliances the RN will strike with other parties between the two rounds. Will decades of tradition of shunning the far right hold? Some, especially in mainstream parties on the right, are tempted to do otherwise this time.
In a sign of how important this election is for the RN, 33 out of 119 of its members of parliament are candidates in the municipal elections.
– Marseille is a long-time conservative city which the left won in the last ballot in 2020, and which all main parties, including the RN, are fighting over.
– Paris is another key battleground. For decades a city led by conservatives, it has had a Socialist mayor since 2001.
– The RN is also targeting Toulon, a city of 180,000 in southern France, which it already ruled under its previous name, the National Front, from 1995 to 2001.
– The left did well across France in the last municipal elections in 2020. It is now weakened nationally. Whether it can keep some of the cities it won last time, such as Nantes and Montpellier for the Socialists, or Lyon and Strasbourg for the Greens, will be in focus.
– The hard-left France Unbowed, which like the RN has never been strong in local elections, is also hoping to make gains, including in the Seine-Saint-Denis area where it has several members of parliament.
