Winners
and losers in France’s municipal elections
Plenty of
political parties are claiming success, but who really came out on top?
March 23,
2026 1:41 am CET
By Victor
Goury-Laffont
PARIS —
Everyone seems to have something to celebrate after runoffs in municipal
elections across France that offer an early glimpse of the trends that will
define next year’s presidential election to replace the term-limited Emmanuel
Macron.
The
far-right National Rally made gains in mid-sized and smaller towns in the
French heartland. The beleaguered conservative Les Républicains held on to most
of the cities it already controlled and even picked up a few new ones.
Macron’s
Renaissance party now controls Bordeaux and Annecy, its first two big local
wins.
The
center-left Socialist Party kept control of Paris and other large metropolises,
while the hard-left France Unbowed picked up several working-class suburbs at
the heart of its electoral strategy.
Not
everyone can be a victor. So here’s our picks of Sunday night’s most prominent
winners and losers.
Winners
Emmanuel
Grégoire: The
soft-spoken 48-year-old catapulted into the ranks of France’s most important
politicians after being handily elected mayor of Paris and extending the
Socialist Party’s 25-year rule of the capital. He now counts Zohran Mamdani and
Sadiq Khan as his peers.
Edouard
Philippe’s
presidential campaign: Macron’s former prime minister is currently seen in
polls as the most likely candidate to advance to the runoff in the race for the
Elysée, where he’d likely face off against the front-running National Rally.
He had
conditioned his bid for the Élysée on winning reelection as mayor of his
hometown, Le Havre — a condition that has now been fulfilled.
Philippe
will hope this victory further boosts his candidacy as his political camp
begins to mull what the future will look like after a 10-year Macron
presidency.
Eric
Ciotti: The new
far-right mayor of Nice, the unofficial capital of the French Riviera, tried
two years ago to strike a deal with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally as the head
of the conservative Les Républicains. He locked himself in party headquarters
to prevent a coup, but the farcical effort failed and he was booted from the
movement. That gamble has paid off, handing him the keys to France’s
fifth-largest city.
His win
is also a partial victory for Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s party, which now has
a powerful ally, but Ciotti’s triumph was also the result of a local rivalry.
His advocacy for mass privatizations and admiration for Argentina’s
chainsaw-wielding libertarian President Javier Milei also doesn’t align with Le
Pen’s self-description as being “neither left nor right” and defense of parts
of the welfare state.
The
National Rally: Party President Bardella said the National Rally “achieved the
greatest breakthrough in its entire history.” Le Pen said it won dozens of
cities.
Losers
Also the
National Rally: There is also reason for the far-right party to worry. The
two-round voting system once again seemed to block the National Rally from
victory in key targets like Nîmes and Toulon. And after a historic showing in
the first round in Marseille, the party’s candidate was handily defeated in the
runoff.
Emmanuel
Macron: The
French president had quietly thrown his weight behind Rachida Dati, his former
culture minister, and former football executive Jean-Michel Aulas in Lyon. Dati
conceded defeat and Aulas lost by a razor-thin margin, but he has announced a
legal challenge of the result.
Left-wing
alliances: The
hard-left France Unbowed and the center-left Socialist Party joined forces in
cities across France to defend or capture town halls. But in Toulouse and
Limoges — where Socialists backed France Unbowed candidates — as well as
Clermont-Ferrand and Brest — where hard-left candidates supported moderates —
left-wing alliances lost.
The
Greens: France’s
environmentalists have lost control of several cities they won during the last
municipal elections, held amid the Covid-19 pandemic, including the key
metropolises of Strasbourg and Bordeaux. They can take some solace for now in a
narrow projected win in Lyon, France’s third-largest city, and in the Alpine
city of Grenoble — both secured through local alliances with France Unbowed.
François
Bayrou: The
centrist former prime minister, an iconic figure in French politics, lost in
his own city of Pau just months after being ousted by a parliamentary
no-confidence vote in September. It could mark the end of his decades-long
political career.
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