French Municipal elections - 2nd round 28 June 2020

[parochial boy]

Possibly, but municipal elections hinge a lot around local notables rather than party labels. Michèle Rubirola is an EÉLV member, but there was actually a separate EÉLV standing against her in the first round. That's also why the PS seem to have held on much better than in other post-Hollande elections. LR too, although their scores were rather more disspointing than expected. And if EÉLV did well in a number of larger villes-centres (not sure how to try this into English, but essentially the main town of any metro area), even in the neighbouring suburban communes their scores were much less convincing. For instance, they finished behind other left wing lists in a lot of the towns surrounding Grenoble, which should theoretically be one of their stronger metro areas.

That is before you even start on how weak they are away from the big urban areas, eg the below from the Jean Jaurès foundation showing their score by canton at the Europeans.



I'm also not very convinced by Yannick Jadot either, on that matter.

[parochial boy]

Olivier Faure having a massive go at Sibeth Ndiaye and talking up the EÉLV-PS-left alliances on France 2. Quite funny to watch to be honest.

Seems to be looking good for the greens (and left) so far, and predictably bad for LREM

[parochial boy]

Marseille estimate:
Rubirola 39.9%
Vassal 29.8%
Ravier 19.8%

VERY big if true.

Flipping Marseille and Bordeaux, winning Lyon and keeping Paris pretty much out do anything else that could have happened by themselves. Looks like there's still a spark of life still there in the French left after all.

Also seems to be anyone's guess as to whether Philippe stays on as PM or takes on the reigns in Le Havre. Which could mean a fund reshuffle for Macron in the next few weeks.

[parochial boy]

Looks like the EÉLV list has won in Lyon Métropole as well as in Lyon city.

The Greens even winning in Annecy! My God.

[parochial boy]

Held since the end of WW2. But also winning back Bobigny from UDI, which had been PCF from 1944 to 2014.

Really, the fact that there are still a scattered few of the old red belt PCF suburbs left is testament to the importance of local notables and old networks in municipal elections. Probably worth bearing in mind before jumping to too many conclusions about the PS being "back from the dead" on the basis of some of today's results.

[parochial boy]

so what's with Marseille anyway? Why did it spend so long under conservative domination? I can guess a big reason (immigration), but would anybody care to give a potted poltical history of the city?

I don't want to pretend I have any particular knowledge of Marseille, but it's an odd city. There is the particularly unpleasant ethnic relations and immigration story (and this goes way back, some of the first race riots in France were directed at Italian mirgants back in the 19th century), but that's only part of it. Unlike basically every other large French town, it is still in decline and is much poorer. So for a start it's practically devoid of the bobos and the highly educated/highly qualified classes you get in more desirable cities. That's not to say there arent any, notaby around the vieux-port I believe there are some gentrifying areas, but it's a much smaller presence, and the "thriving globalised city" in that part of the country is Aix-en-Provence. Add to being a poor city, the bourgeois class of Marseille is much more like the  traditional bourgeoise. That is, the city has much more traditional, um, class relations. For instance, the relationship between the poor northern suburbs voting Mélenchon and rich southern ones voting Fillon in 2017 was among the most stark of every major French city.

The pastiche is that the rich of Marseille all come from the same families, have inherited wealth, all have the same old networks and ensure their upkeeps through various corrupt networks notably in the property market. Case in point, one of Vassal's key supporters ran into a major scandal a few months ago (I should look up the details, but am too lazy to) about housing he was providing that was basically not fit for human habitation. That happens a lot in Marseille, scandals around insalubrious living conditions, or collapsing buildings are all too common, kind of as a result of these old nepotistic networks.

The other side of the story is the Socialist Federation of the Bouches-du-Rhône, which used to be enourmously powerful. Not just in municipal politics that is, but also within the Socialist party as a whole. It used to be said that the Socalist federations of the Nord and the Bouches-du-Rhône (the two biggest, obviously) could set the direction of the party as a whole, and were enourmously influential in selecting candidates etc. This being Marseille, it inevitably meant the development of local caudillos and notoriously corrupt behaviour within the party, be it around things like candidate selection, or just straight out profiteering and criminal behaviour. Even paying attention a bit today, there are regular scandals involving various PS politicos in the department. Part of that also meant constant infighting and various dissident lists, which contributed to the eventual downfall in 1989 when mayor Robert Vigoureux, elected as a PS dissident in 89, stood against the official PS list again after Mitterand refused to make him US ambassador.

Fwiw, Marseille is also geographically huge. As in, the municipality is twice the size of Paris by area. A lot of that is the calanques, but it does mean the the municipaliry does include a lot of areas that would probably be separate communes in other metro areas. Particulary in the South and the East, which start to look a little bit more like the "stereotypical" FN voting area (ie, white and working class)

[parochial boy]

Plus they gained Metz and Orléans, the latter from the incumbent LREM mayor, which somewhat unedrmines the "it's just local barons" line of thought.

The thing that sticks out to me is quite how mediocre the LREM-LR alliances performed. Notably Lyon and Bordeaux, but also below expectations in Clermont-Ferrand, Tours, Strasbourg, Annecy, the list goes on. In most cases, struggling to hit, or even falling short of their combined first round scores.

In that respect, the fact that the left held steady, despite LREM expanding into the political spectrum is probably something of a rebound. Especially since, bad as 2014 was, the nadir was probably around 2017-18. I wouldn't want to make to many inferences of the back of these, like, if you wanted to overinterpret the results, you could probably even make the claim that the UDI were somehow a serious political party, when...

But I'd stick to what I have said earlier, there is clearly a political space for traditional "left wing" and "right wing" politics in France - backed up by polling that says that what people care about the most are actually things like public services, the welfare state, working conditions and so on.

[parochial boy]

And speaking of "anti-système" celebrities at the presidential election, note that the weird attrape-tout list formed around Mohed Altrad, Rémi Gaillard and supported by LFI (!?) completely flopped out in Montpellier - way, way below what they got combined in the first round.

Whatever happened to François Ruffin? Seems like he was once relevant enough to be included in a few presidential and approval polls beforehand if my memory serves right.

Still around, he's got a new book out, and last I heard he had a parliamentary assisstant living within in order to make youtube videos during the lockdown. I feel pretty confident he wont stand against Méluche, and even then, as much as Merci Patron was a good film, for the moment I'm not sure he's got a lot going for him beyond "I'm from Picardie".

Honestly, at this very point in time, I would be looking at Éric Piolle as the best hope for the left. I don't particularly like they guy, but at least he will openly admit that he is left wing (cough, Yannick Jadot, cough); got the the pretty enthusiastic support of the likes of Ruffin and Clémentine Autain; and got a pretty positive showing in Grenoble.