Paris Stays Left as Far Right Notches Breakthrough in Nice in France’s Municipal Runoffs

A country split between capital and coast

Emmanuel Grégoire climbed onto a bicycle and pedaled to Paris City Hall late on March 22, waving to supporters gathered under the sandstone façade on Place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville. In a brief speech, the Socialist politician hailed “the victory of a certain vision of Paris: a vibrant Paris, a progressive Paris” and promised to soften—rather than reverse—the city’s contentious urban transformation.

Seven hundred kilometers to the south in Nice, former conservative party leader Éric Ciotti stood before cheering crowds on the Promenade des Anglais. Backed by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, he had just unseated longtime mayor Christian Estrosi and handed the far right its most significant municipal trophy to date.

The twin images, hours apart on the night of France’s nationwide municipal runoffs, captured the country’s fractured political landscape: a capital that again chose a left-green coalition and a Mediterranean stronghold that swung to a hard-line alliance of the right and far right.

The March 22 second round, following a first round on March 15, did not produce a single winner in national terms. Instead, it reinforced a map in which the left dominates major cities, the traditional right is strong in mid-sized towns, and the far right extends its reach across parts of the south and deindustrialized regions—against a backdrop of historically low turnout.

Paris: Grégoire wins, but signals a post-Hidalgo shift

In Paris, voters handed Grégoire, a 48-year-old Socialist and former first deputy to outgoing Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a clear victory in a three-way runoff. Heading a united list of the Socialist Party, Greens and Communists, he won just over 50% of the vote, defeating right-wing candidate Rachida Dati and far-left contender Sophia Chikirou.

Dati, from the conservative Les Républicains (LR), ran with the support of prominent figures from President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp, which chose not to field a strong, clearly branded candidate of its own. Chikirou represented Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France insoumise (LFI), which refused to join the broader left coalition.

The result keeps France’s capital firmly in left-wing hands for a fifth consecutive term, following Bertrand Delanoë and Hidalgo. But it also marks a political handover within the left. Grégoire rose through Paris City Hall as Hidalgo’s chief lieutenant on urban planning before breaking with her after her unsuccessful 2022 presidential bid, which drew less than 2% of the national vote and weakened her standing inside the Socialist Party.

In media interviews during the campaign, Grégoire accused Hidalgo of trying to block his rise. He said the outgoing mayor “did everything she could to torpedo my candidacy,” adding, “I’m not her candidate and I am not her heir.” His platform blends continuity on Hidalgo’s environmental agenda—bike lanes, low-traffic zones, climate adaptation—with a promise of a less combative style and a sharper focus on housing affordability and the cost of living.

Grégoire has vowed to tighten rules on short-term rentals and second homes, expand social housing and continue redesigning streets for pedestrians and cyclists. At the same time, he has acknowledged frustration among residents and small businesses over years of construction, traffic changes and rising rents, promising to “listen more” as the city prepares for a post-Olympic phase.

For Macron’s centrists, the Paris result underscores a broader failure to secure lasting footholds in large municipalities. Despite having governed nationally since 2017, the presidential camp has struggled in local races, and its attempt to rally behind Dati as the most viable anti-left candidate did not prevent a Socialist victory.

Nice: Ciotti, backed by National Rally, delivers a far-right prize

If Paris confirmed the resilience of a non-Mélenchonist left in metropolitan France, Nice signaled something very different: the consolidation of a far-right orbit around one of the country’s major cities.

Ciotti, a 60-year-old lawmaker long known for his hard-line views on immigration and security, was once a pillar of LR and led the party nationally. After he pushed for an alliance with the National Rally and clashed with party leaders, he left in 2024 to create the Union des droites pour la République (UDR), a new party advocating a “union of the rights.”

In Nice, Ciotti ran under the UDR banner at the head of a joint list with the National Rally and smaller allies. Party president Jordan Bardella campaigned openly at his side, and Le Pen’s movement framed the race as a test of its ability to win big cities by backing figures rooted in the traditional right.

The strategy paid off. Ciotti finished the first round far ahead of Estrosi, with roughly 43% of the vote to the incumbent’s 31%, and consolidated his lead in the runoff, winning close to 49%. Estrosi, who had moved closer to Macron’s camp in recent years, could not overcome a split on the right and a tepid stance from his own former party.

LR’s current leader, Bruno Retailleau, refused to endorse either man between the two rounds, a “neither-nor” position that critics inside the party said effectively abandoned Estrosi and allowed Ciotti to unite conservative and far-right voters. After the election, Retailleau argued that voters had punished officials who “tried to woo the left,” an implicit criticism of the outgoing mayor’s centrist alliances, while downplaying the far-right element of Ciotti’s win.

Regardless of formal labels, French and international outlets widely described Nice—France’s fifth-largest city and a long-time conservative bastion—as the most symbolic gain of the night for Le Pen’s camp. The National Rally already governs Perpignan directly under Mayor Louis Aliot. With Nice, it or its allies now control two major urban centers, along with dozens of small and medium-sized towns across the south and in deindustrialized belts of the north and east.

Bardella called the municipal cycle “the greatest breakthrough in our history in this type of election,” claiming roughly 70 municipalities and several thousand municipal council seats for the party and its allies. Analysts noted that while the far right missed some of its most ambitious targets, including Marseille and Toulon, it significantly expanded its local presence compared with previous cycles.

Nice, in particular, offers a high-profile stage for Ciotti’s priorities: more policing and video surveillance, a hard line on migration and street crime, and stricter rules on public expressions of religion. Rights groups and legal experts say the new administration’s measures are likely to be closely watched for potential clashes with national laws on secularism and discrimination.

Beyond the headline races: a mixed national map

Outside Paris and Nice, the broader picture remained uneven.

In Marseille, left-wing Mayor Benoît Payan secured another term, beating a strong National Rally challenger. In Lyon, Green Mayor Grégory Doucet was reconfirmed after forging agreements with other left parties between the two rounds. Lille, Rennes and Montpellier, among other large cities, stayed under left or green leadership.

The traditional right, meanwhile, performed strongly in many medium-sized cities. LR and its allies took or retook mayoralties in places such as Besançon, Brest, Limoges, Cherbourg, Tulle and Clermont-Ferrand, consolidating a broad but dispersed local base. Party officials say they now control more than 1,200 town halls in municipalities with over 3,500 residents.

Macron’s Renaissance party and allies posted more modest results. Centrist lists held or gained some affluent suburbs and mid-sized cities but failed to capture any of the largest urban prizes and saw two of their most visible standard-bearers—Dati in Paris and Estrosi in Nice—defeated.

Low turnout clouds mandates

Turnout was low across the board. The Interior Ministry reported 48.1% participation at 5 p.m. in mainland France during the runoff, several points below the comparable municipal cycle in 2014. Final participation edged only slightly above 50%, making 2026 one of the lowest-turnout municipal cycles in modern history, excluding the Covid-19-disrupted 2020 elections.

Rural communes under 1,000 inhabitants continued to see much higher engagement, with turnout in the mid-60s in the first round, while large cities and some working-class suburbs registered the weakest participation. Sociologists quoted in French media described the abstention as part of a long-term shift in attitudes toward voting, particularly among younger and lower-income citizens who see little impact from local politics on their daily lives.

The result is that many new mayors, including Grégoire and Ciotti, will govern with the active support of well under a third of eligible adults once abstention is factored in, raising questions about the strength of their mandates.

Looking ahead to 2027

With the next presidential election scheduled for 2027 and Macron barred from seeking a third term under the Constitution, all major political camps are already reading longer-term lessons into the municipal map.

For the left, control of Paris, Marseille, Lyon and several other big cities demonstrates continued appeal among urban, often younger and more educated electorates. Grégoire’s victory in the capital, achieved without an alliance with Mélenchon’s far-left party, has strengthened arguments within the Socialist Party for a broad, pro-European, ecological left coalition that keeps LFI at arm’s length.

Supporters of a united left including Mélenchon’s movement counter that municipal coalitions cannot automatically be scaled up to a national race, where turnout patterns and the need to reach working-class voters outside major cities will be decisive.

On the right, LR faces a strategic crossroads. Its recovery in medium-sized towns gives it organizational strength, but the loss of Nice to a former party chief allied with the National Rally highlights the risk of further fragmentation if it refuses deals with Le Pen’s camp. Some in LR argue for a clear line of separation from the far right, while others say local experiments like Ciotti’s offer the only realistic path to power.

The National Rally, for its part, must decide how to use its expanded local base. Le Pen and Bardella have long sought to present the party as capable of governing, not merely protesting, and municipal offices provide opportunities to showcase administrative experience and cultivate networks of local notables. But the party still struggles in most large cities and often relies on allies or joint lists rather than winning under its own label.

An editorial in Le Monde, reflecting on the municipal results, concluded that despite the far right’s rise and Macron’s waning influence, “the French people’s vote is still up for grabs” ahead of 2027. The contests in Paris and Nice suggest that the country’s political future will be decided not by a single national swing, but by how parties navigate an increasingly divided electoral geography.

On election night, that divide was visible in the streets: a new mayor in Paris promising a greener, more “vibrant” capital, and a new mayor in Nice promising tougher borders and stricter order along the Riviera. Between those two cities lies an electorate that remains unsettled—and a presidential race that has yet to find its favorite.