Sun belt in focus
Marseille, France’s second-biggest city, perfectly illustrates both the National Rally’s advances and its dilemma.
National Rally candidate Franck Allisio (35 percent) almost tied with incumbent left-wing Mayor Benoît Payan (36.7 percent) in the first round. That’s more than 15 percentage points higher than the National Rally’s previous score in the 2020 local election.
Still, Allisio now faces an uphill battle to beat the current mayor, with the two main centrist and conservative forces discussing the best strategy to beat him shortly after polls closed. The conservative candidate, who came third, will not be pulling out — reducing the prospect of her votes going to Allisio.
In Nîmes, another key target in the National Rally’s sun belt, the calculus is different. Its candidate, the prominent politician Julien Sanchez, came first but will now face one opponent from the center right and one from the center left, who are better placed because they are expected to pick up the votes of candidates who won’t be represented in the second round.
In Toulon, National Rally candidate Laure Lavalette, a personal friend of Le Pen, landed an impressive 42 percent of the vote on Sunday. However, it is predicted that she will struggle to attract more voters in the second round, putting her center-right rival in a strong position.
Asked about this potential disappointment in a city that the far right had been eyeing as a top prize, party heavyweight and MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy said on radio France Inter: “An election is never a done deal.”