French Municipal elections - 2nd round 28 June 2020

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Communists lose Saint Denis to Socialists.

[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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Communists also lost Arles. Their decay is slow but inevitable.

Aubry and Moudenc have both indeed survived, so that's two big cities the ecologists narrowly lost. Good for Aubry, honestly. She's gotten a raw deal already since 2012.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Good results for the left it seems. Happy about that. A bit less happy about the decay of PCF who are otherwise a great party. PCF and PVDA have good ties we maintain, and we maintain ties with the CGT (the far-left union). I have donated sone money to them for their strikes in the beginning of the year, and participated in a protest / strike out of solidarity. Macron really ravaged the country, so really happy that his party fails to make a breakthrough, although local elections don't say a lot about the generals, and the far-right as well as Macron really don't have a huge organization on a local level.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Looks like Marseille is headed toward a hung municipal council. In the convoluted Electoral College-style setup, the united left ticket narrowly lost the 8th district to a dissident list, and I've heard (though it's not confirmed) that the right is holding on to the 6th. In that case, Rubirola would have a plurality but not an absolute majority. I'm still thinking she ends up mayor, but in a city like Marseille, who knows.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Communists also lost Arles. Their decay is slow but inevitable.

They are an interesting example of a political party that has died off in the most direct and literal of senses.

[Velasco]

Is the EELV success a sign of a greater environmental awareness in France?

[gg norman]

Is the EELV success a sign of a greater environmental awareness in France?

Not necessarily; prior high-profile green issues, like the Notre-Dame Landes Airport, were localized at best and did not significantly affect national trends. It should be noted that voters are much happier about their local politicians than national ones and there is a lot of favorite son/daughter/neighbor factors in play and isn't always knee-jerk finger like in other elections. Many of the Greens' competitors have weak local parties and/or lack alliances plus left-wing parties (minus Melenchon + friends) are almost always going to have an easier time allying with each other vs Macron, Le Pen and everyone else in between. However, the Greens were logical benefactor of Macron's fall on the left due to the shadow of Melenchon and Hollande.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

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?

[Velasco]

Is the EELV success a sign of a greater environmental awareness in France?

Not necessarily; prior high-profile green issues, like the Notre-Dame Landes Airport, were localized at best and did not significantly affect national trends. It should be noted that voters are much happier about their local politicians than national ones and there is a lot of favorite son/daughter/neighbor factors in play and isn't always knee-jerk finger like in other elections. Many of the Greens' competitors have weak local parties and/or lack alliances plus left-wing parties (minus Melenchon + friends) are almost always going to have an easier time allying with each other vs Macron, Le Pen and everyone else in between. However, the Greens were logical benefactor of Macron's fall on the left due to the shadow of Melenchon and Hollande.

 I heard that Macron could reshuffle his cabinet as a cinsequence of these elections, in order implement some "social and ecological turn". On the other hand, climate change is going to be one of the key issues in the European reconstruction plan agreed with Merkel. Obviously these are local elections and the turnout was very low, but still they have political repercusions. It won't be a minor issue if the main cities in France implement green policies, such as promoting bycicles and public transport instead of private cars

[CumbrianLefty]

Paris estimate:
Hidalgo 49.3%
Dati 32.7%
Buzyn 13.7%

My Queen Is Alive

Great news

[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)

[Tirnam]

Out of 236 cities with more than 30,000 inhabitants

18 LFI, PCF (25 in 2014)
42 PS (51)
16 DVG (6)
10 EELV (2)
Total left: 86 (84 in 2014)

23 Center (LREM, UDI, MoDem) (29 in 2014)

77 LR (102)
43 DVD (18)
Total right: 120 (120)

RN: 3 (2)
Divers: 4 (1)

So overall not necessarily a great success for the left which barely improve from the disaster of 2014.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Out of 236 cities with more than 30,000 inhabitants

18 LFI, PCF (25 in 2014)
42 PS (51)
16 DVG (6)
10 EELV (2)
Total left: 86 (84 in 2014)

23 Center (LREM, UDI, MoDem) (29 in 2014)

77 LR (102)
43 DVD (18)
Total right: 120 (120)

RN: 3 (2)
Divers: 4 (1)

So overall not necessarily a great success for the left which barely improve from the disaster of 2014.

One thing that is increasingly becoming clear (you can see the trend first taking shape in 2001, but 2014 and 2020 have accentuated it) is that the left is coming to dominate big cities while the right generally does well in medium-sized ones. Note that it's different from the historical pattern of small towns leaning right (which explains why the Senate has remained controlled by the right from 1946 to 2011). What we seem to see lately is that the left crushes it in the "regional metropoles". Of the 11 cities with more than 200K inhabitants, it will now control 8 or 9 (depending on what happens in Marseille), the same or more as its peak in 2008 and up from 7 in 2014 and 6 in 2001. If you weigh them by population, left control was 63% in 2001, 75% in 2008, 68% in 2014 and 72 to 86(!!)% this year. That's a historic level of domination, especially given the left's shoddy state nationwide.

Looking at cities between 100K and 200K, meanwhile, the left controls 14/30 representing 45% of their population. In 2014, it was 12 and 40%. In 2008, it was 21 and 70(!)%. And in 2001, it was 13 and 43%. So the left is more or less back to its 2001 levels there, already a far less impressive performance. Its high mark from 2008, when you had cities like Reims flipping, seems very hard to replicate at this point.

I haven't taken a look at cities under 100K yet, but if you applied your labels the same way I did, then out of cities between 30K and 100K, the left should hold just 63/195, actually down from 65 in 2014. And 2014 was almost certainly a low point to begin with. So, how you interpret these results really depends on which cities you're looking at.

[CumbrianLefty]

At the very least, we might see these results as room for cautious optimism that the French left has arrested its recent vertiginous decline - something that needed to happen before it can move forward.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think the better news is for LR, who seem - for the moment anyway - undisputed masters of the French Right, at least municipally. The disaster of the euro elections, with their coalition neatly cleaving in two to benefit LREM and RN, was not repeated and they seem just as strong in the smaller cities as ever. Aside from the two big cities they lost to the Greens, and Perpignan, the only city with over 100,000 people they lost was the capital of Reunion, which was lost to the Communists.

[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.

[Zinneke]

At the very least, we might see these results as room for cautious optimism that the French left has arrested its recent vertiginous decline - something that needed to happen before it can move forward.

I'm pessimistic because there is sh**t turnout and the inevitable egos will clash when it comes to the Presidency. Which in turn just puts people off.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Also Aubervilliers (?!?!?!), because of a hilarious vote split. Ah, the French Left.

[Antonio the Sixth]

At the very least, we might see these results as room for cautious optimism that the French left has arrested its recent vertiginous decline - something that needed to happen before it can move forward.

I'm pessimistic because there is sh**t turnout and the inevitable egos will clash when it comes to the Presidency. Which in turn just puts people off.

Faure has already said PS is ready to back an EELV candidate. I'm sure  Mélenchon will still do his thing, but given how much of a failure he's been so far, I could see his support implode as left-wing voters consolidate to stop another FBM-Panzergirl matchup.

It still depends on whether EELV has a decent candidate to run, of course. That hasn't worked out well for them in the past.

[Zinneke]

At the very least, we might see these results as room for cautious optimism that the French left has arrested its recent vertiginous decline - something that needed to happen before it can move forward.

I'm pessimistic because there is sh**t turnout and the inevitable egos will clash when it comes to the Presidency. Which in turn just puts people off.

Faure has already said PS is ready to back an EELV candidate. I'm sure  Mélenchon will still do his thing, but given how much of a failure he's been so far, I could see his support implode as left-wing voters consolidate to stop another FBM-Panzergirl matchup.

It still depends on whether EELV has a decent candidate to run, of course. That hasn't worked out well for them in the past.

PS and EELV will likely not be the only people claiming the space between Mélenchon and Macron though.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

if the centre-left were smart they'd organize some sort of preliminary primary between EELV, G.S, PS etc to avoid the standard clown-car scuppering their chances off the bat.

[Zinneke]

if the centre-left were smart they'd organize some sort of preliminary primary between EELV, G.S, PS etc to avoid the standard clown-car scuppering their chances off the bat.

The Left have systemically, during the course of the 5th Republic, believed that in a two round presidential system there is no need for a primary, as the first round is the primary for them. Therein lies the issue, and why they are doomed until they effectively dissavow the 5th Republic model. And that doesn't mean Mélenchon's Bolivarian 6th Republic pipe dream that maintains the same stale Jacobine model outdated for the world today.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

It seems to me that Anne Hidalgo would be the candidate of the French left with the most mass appeal, no?

[Zinneke]

It seems to me that Anne Hidalgo would be the candidate of the French left with the most mass appeal, no?

No.
There is an old adage that being Mayor of Paris is a good stepping stone to being President of France. I imagine Chirac inspired this idea the most. It's becoming as clichéd as the New York or London gig (future PM/President material aaah)
But for one she is still too PS apparatchik so soon after Hollande. She'd be tone deaf to run knowing she'd be seen as an opportunist for running a year into her second term. She is still relatively young and the PS is still too toxic a brand. She's biding her time probably. But more importantly she's a seriously bland politician.

In fact I don't understand why some have cheerleader her on here : what has been her great achievement in the Capital? It's still overpriced, dirty, public spaces are not maintained, most of the public service classes like nurses and firemen and police have to live outside of her juridiction (but still consider themselves Parisian) resulting in the car Vs "real Parisians needed a car-less city " debate being obsolete (unlike Brussels), and she did not have the spunk to run on a demand for institutional change when she has a voice in the matter. Hell the EELV guy was right :  knock down the petite couronne and have one Greater Paris region with competences from the Mayor at the Regional level. This isn't a poor city. It can maintain high quality public services if it wanted to. Hidalgo had the chance to reach out to reform Macron and failed.