French Municipal elections - 2nd round 28 June 2020

[parochial boy]

Is it time for a thread? I think it's time for a thread on the next installment of everybody's favourite series "Les aventures de Jupiter: La (pas tellement) mystérieuse disparition du parti Socaliste" (avec tout le monde sauf Les Républicains).

Anyway, reason for starting this thread - Yannick Jadot has ruled out a left alliance in Lyon (maybe in the second round, EELV got 21% in the Europeans you see), proving that the French left continue to collectively be a group of narcissistic arsewipes who deserve everything they get. Anyway, congratulations of your re-election M. Collomb.

More to follow. Maybe.

[parochial boy]

Oh it would be sweet if Griveaux somehow lost in Paris. If anyone sums up the careerist snob with no fixed values its him. From what I can tell, its a bit more hopeful for Hidalgo than it was a year or so ago - her approval ratings are up, and a lot of the anger over the things like the alternance and pederstrianising the right bank of the Seine have died down. And hopefully most of the angry motorists don't actually live in Paris.

Vaguely trying to work out which big cities the left has the best chance of holding (ignoring the popularity or unpopularity of the incumbent of course), I went through the Euro election results to see what EELV, LFI, PS, Génération.S, PCF, Lutte Ouvrière and the Animalistes (I'm calling them left, what the hell...) got together. For interest if nothing else it was something like:

Rennes - 52.2%
Lille - 50.9%
Grenoble - 49.8%
Toulouse - 48.9%
Nantes - 48.5%
Bordeaux - 44.4%
Strasbourg - 43.2%
Paris - 42.6%
Lyon - 42.2%
Marseille - 35.5%
Nice - 28.3%

I'm not sure if anyone noticed at the time, but the geography of the Parti Animaliste was actually a little bit surprising. They very definitely underperformed in the larger towns and cities; with a few exceptions being the likes of Le Havre, ie no the idéopôle type places. Backing this up, their best departments in France where in places like Haute-Marne, Corsica, Oise, Eure and the Ardennes. Definitely seems like they were being used as a protest vote back in May

[parochial boy]

Rachida Dati will lead the Les Républicains (remember them?) list in Paris. Apparently it's been deemed to be a not-very-good idea; but LR have no hope so... meh.

Also causing a minor stir was noted Galaxy Brain Christophe Castaner's idea of getting rid of the traditional "DVG" and "DVD" lables for independent candidatures in smaller (ie population under 1'000) municipalities. Idea is that the growth of "citizens" lists, party dealignment and the general irrelvance of ideological leanings in small village municipal politics makes the labels irrelevant and arbitrary. Of course, there are lots of LREM aligned "independent" lists going to be standing, who would rather not have a "Right" or "Left" label attached to them. So guess who doing this would mostly wind up helping?

[parochial boy]

Greens also rejected a pact with Méluche in Marseille. Will now campaign for the RN instead

When were DVD and DVG introduced as labels? It strikes me as something that makes a lot of sense in terms of identifying what independents actually stand for, so it would be a shame to lose it.

Couldn't tell from a relatively brief internet search - although the laws around it seem to be being constantly tinkered with. As for being used in smaller communes though, it does seem a little bit arbitrary - my parents live in a tiny village in Brittany of less than a thousand people. The mayor is classed as DVD, but as far as I have ever been able to tell, nothing that he has ever said or done would really be identifiably ideological in any sense. It's all stuff like asking the bin men to come more often or renovating the school building. In which case, why make an ideological label when in practice it's meaningless?

[parochial boy]

Posting a couple of recent polls from Paris and Strasbourg courtesy of Ifop. Both considerably less gruesome than might otherwise be expected





Huffington Post are keeping a tracker of polling within individual communes here

[parochial boy]

Lack of local notables. France generally has a pretty weak party system that complements a fairly strong tradition of local barons. For example Alain Juppé being mayor of Bordeaux for approximately 500 years, or Bayrou in Pau, or a guy like Jean-Christophe Lagarde managing to get elected somewhere like Drancy. It's even more the case in smaller and more rural parts of the country (cf the now soon-to-be-defunct-but-apparently-they-changed-their-minds Parti Radical de Gauche whose entire existence was predicated on a handful of people who could win municipal and departmental elections as a particularly pertinent example of this).

So with a party like LREM, excepting a few high profile defections like Collomb in an already instinctively LREM-inclined city like Lyon, they don't really have those sorts of local profiles, and that makes municipal elections particularly disadvantageous. The move to a single constituency in the Euro elections was also allegedly inspired by the fact it would mean LREM only needing to find one as opposed to 8 têtes de liste, which gives you an idea already. The French party system is byzantine enough that this probably doesn't matter that much for at least the short term post-Macron. It's not like the party of the incumbent president is going to struggle to get the 500 signatures. Probably the new laws on the cumul des mandats helps too.

[parochial boy]

Édouard Philippe the, you know, Prime Minister is apparently heading a list in his home town of Le Havre. Except that he won't actually become mayor if he wins - next comes a sort of confused blur in which it appears the LR incumbent Jean-Baptiste Gastinne would stay mayor in the event; except that LR have said they are refusing to support Philippe's list.

WTF is this? WT actual F is this? The man even makes his boss look humble

[parochial boy]

At this point it looks like it will be Hidalgo vs Dati imo. Buzyn doesn't seem to be taking off.

Buzyn is at 20% after a week of campaigning, already several points up from the slime ball she replaced, and she can perhaps count on Vilani's 8%. Add to that that the electoral system does not benefit Dati and I think Buzyn would be in a strong position but for the fact that time is running out.

But for sure the media are just dying for this election to be considered "the return of LR" on the French political scene. The reason this election in Paris has descended into a farce especially is because everyone knows that Paris goes beyond the arrondissements and most of the social, urban, logistic and economic problems should really be on Ile-de-France level. Its like packing Bruxelles-Ville with loads of mediatic candidates for an election and then asking them to solve the Belgian-wide congestion problem.

France desperately needs to evaluate its multi-level governance structures and look towards the German federal model (inc. their urban zones), and that also means decentralising certain government institutions from Paris. Unfortunately you will never teach ENArques what it means to be from the Province, they prefer to cite Racine and Gracet in Parisian cocktail saloons...

Yep, and on that note, Libé actually did a pretty interesting overview of the races in several communes in Seine-Saint-Denis a few weeks ago.

As for decentralisation, yes, absolutely. But I'd be a little bit cautious of just thinking the job would be done by moving a few institutions to Lyon or Strasbourg. Most of the proposed decentralisation projects in France still involve a big concentration of power around the regional metropolises and especially the city cores; which I don't think is necessarily a great idea in a country that has the problems France actually has. Ideally, I think some sort of reinforcement of powers at the departmental level should happen, but the departments aren't exactly fashionable at the moment, so pipe dream heh...

[parochial boy]

Seems like the first round is still taking place, uh, stay tuned for the second one.* Turnout will be dreadful, and old people in particular staying at home out of precaution could have a rather noteworthy effect on results. Not necessarily good for LREM or LR that is.

*it was thought Macron might postpone the elections in his speech last night. He didn't

[parochial boy]

To be fair, considering stereotypes about their dietary preferences - the average Breton is probably a walking disinfectant already anyway

[parochial boy]

TF1 reporting Édouard Philippe ahead in Le Havre, Nicolar Mayer-Rossignol (PS) ahead of the Greens in Rouen,  Louis Aliot (FN) ahead in Perpignan. And Martine Aubry ahead in Lille.

[parochial boy]

Pierre Hurmic (EELV) ahead of the LR incumbent Nicolas Florian in Bordeaux. But the big shock is that Philippe Poutou (the NPA presidential candidate from 2017) qualifies for the second round(!). Some good coming out of today then

[parochial boy]

He was polling around the threshold (and he's about the one French politician I have an even remotely positive opinion of), but between him and Hurmic ahead it's not was expected.

TF1 Estimation for Paris
Hidalgo (PS) - 31%
Dati (LR) - 22%
Buzyn (LREM) -  17%
Belliard (EELV) - 11%

[parochial boy]

Solid night for the PS/Greens/DVG candidates to be honest. Looks like all the big ones will be comfortably held; outperformed expectations in Paris; in with a serious shot at taking Bordeaux, Toulouse and Lyon; an outside shot at taking Marseille; held on to a few symbolic places like Lens quite comfortably. Also very pleasing to see Patrice Vergriete of free public transport fame getting 65% in Dunkerque. Seems absolutely dreadful for Les Républicains though, and LREM struggled as expected.

[parochial boy]

Lyon metropole rather than Lyon municipality. I would snear about the complexity, but the intercommunalities haven't been the worst idea as it turns out.

[parochial boy]

I have some questions regarding metropolitian / intercommunal elections:

Is the Lyon Metropolitan Council election the only election of councillors to intercommunal structures which doesn't place concurrently with the municipal elections?

Yeah, because of Lyon Métropole's unique situation since 2015 of being simultaneously a department and an intercommunality. So Lyon Métropole's councillors are elected by constituencies that group several communes (outside of Lyon) or arrondissements (within Lyon), as opposed to the other intercommunalities, whose council's are elected based on the municipal election results in each individual commune. That means, in Lyon Métropole you would cast a separate vote for both your municipality/arrondissement and for the Metropolitan election. Whereas everywhere else you just vote once in your municipality and that determines the Intercommunality council results.

Does the bonus system add 50% of the seats to the winning party at electoral district level or at metropolitan level?

Similar to the Paris/Marseille/Lyon municipal elections - the bonus is at the constituency level. No bonus for being the first party across the whole Métropole.

How are territorial council members elected?

As in the intercommunalities (and equivalent...)? It depends on the type of collectivity. For a collectivity "à fiscalité propre" (ie with the ability to collect taxes by itself). Each commune has a certain number of seats that it sends to the council. Seats are allocated based on the municipal results within the commune. For the most part, this works in the same way as the municipal election, half the available seats for the winning list and the remainder divided proportionally. Although if the commune in question has a population of under 1000, then it will be the mayor (and eventually deputy-mayors who get elected).

In practice, over 90% of the population live in a collectivity "à fiscalité propre", but for non-tax raising ones, councillors are elected directly by the municipal councils themselves.

[parochial boy]

Speaking of the, uh, wisdom of having held the elections, there now appears to be a growing list of mayors who were elected on the 15th and have since fallen sick or passed away due to the virus.

Especially in smaller and rural communes where municipal politics tends to rely on the retired and the elderly, looks like having to go out and campaign as the date approached took its toll.

[parochial boy]

Discussions on when to hold the second round surfacing today. A bunch of notable local elected representatives (inc Anne Hidalgo and Christian Estrosi) have signed an editorial in the Journal du Dimanche asking for the second round to be held by then end of June. The 21st or 28th preferably. On the basis that the current delays are stopping anything happening (budgeting, infrastructure planning and so on).

Any later would require the first round to be held again in the 5'000 odd municipalities in which require a second round. In that case, September/October or spring 2021 have been suggested. Problem with the former is the unfolding economic crisis; and with the latter is, well, there are already regional and departmental elections scheduled for 2021. Which would make for quite a year.

Hopefully the people responsible pay for this at the ballot box.

[parochial boy]

What is the Trotskyist candidate doing so far? Can someone give me the rundown of what happened in that municipality and it’s theoretical future?

Assuming you mean Philippe Poutou in Bordeaux? He stood as the head of a joint Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (his own party, the continuation of Alain Krivine and Olivier Besancenot's Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, a Trotskyite but also very soixante-huitard influenced outfit) and France Insoumise stood a joint list which got 12% in the first round, meaning it is qualified for the second round and he should get elected to the municipal council in the second round.

It looks as if there haven't been any alliances for the second round - so him, Thomas Cazenave (LREM), Nicolas Florian (LR) and Pierre Hurmic (PS) are all still standing on their own lists. Florian is the incumbent mayor, having replaced Alain Juppé (who replaced Chaban-Delmas before him), and Bordeaux has been a LR/UMP fief at the municipal level basically for ever. It's by reputation a pretty bourgeois town, traditionally trade (a, um, rather specific kind of trade) and business (and, obviously, viticultural) oriented economically, and has kept on electing right wing mayors, even while becoming reliably left wing in other elections. Hollande got 58% in 2012 and Mélenchongand Hamon still got over 33% combined even in 2017.

Having said that, it was very close between Hurmic and Florian in the first round, so there might be a degree of tactical voting in an attempt to get the left into power.

[parochial boy]

Reasonably interesting of the RN vote from the Jean-Jaurès foundation (PS aligned, so watch out). Basically, despite the eye catching scores of a few incumbents, notably Steeve Briois in Hénin-Beaumont, they didn't do all that well. They had a strategy of consolidating resources around towns with better prospects, but despite this, only 136 of 262 lists cleared the 10% hurdle this year - compared to 317 out of 369 in 2014. And some fairly notable drops across the country.

Factor in LREM's poor performances - dissapointing across the big towns, notably including Gérard Collomb's third place in Lyon métropole - and it doesn't look that convincing for the fabled realignment of French politics around the Souverainiste and Progressiste wings. I mean, yeah, municipals are a bit unusual and rely more on local notable figures, of which LREM and RN both have relatively few. But still...

[parochial boy]

Reasonably interesting of the RN vote from the Jean-Jaurès foundation (PS aligned, so watch out). Basically, despite the eye catching scores of a few incumbents, notably Steeve Briois in Hénin-Beaumont, they didn't do all that well. They had a strategy of consolidating resources around towns with better prospects, but despite this, only 136 of 262 lists cleared the 10% hurdle this year - compared to 317 out of 369 in 2014. And some fairly notable drops across the country.

Factor in LREM's poor performances - dissapointing across the big towns, notably including Gérard Collomb's third place in Lyon métropole - and it doesn't look that convincing for the fabled realignment of French politics around the Souverainiste and Progressiste wings. I mean, yeah, municipals are a bit unusual and rely more on local notable figures, of which LREM and RN both have relatively few. But still...

One thing to consider is the record high abstention. The FN vote tends to be highly turnout-sensitive given its demographics, so it's possible that a lot of their underperformance was a result of that.

Yeah, although here is a map of the increase in abstention from the same source.


Obviously, you can't make too many inferences from it, as it might have been disproportionately FN voters not turning out across the board. But, it does seem like you have been surges in abstention in both strong (Provence, the Rhône and Garonne valleys) and weak (Brittany and the Inner West) FN areas - and the smaller surges in both strong (Ardennes, Champagne, Bourgogne) and weak (Paris, Pyrenees, Massif Central) areas. It's a pretty unusual looking map, but it would seem to imply that FN voting areas at least weren't abstaining in greater numbers.

[parochial boy]

On another topic, crocodile tears at the ready, but (ex-)Lyon mayor Gérard Collomb (and ex-Socialist) makes an alliance with LR for the second round, whereby he steps down in favour of the LR candidate for the Lyon métropole; and they return the favour for LREM's Yann Cucherat in the municipality. LREM promptly disown the alliance and withdraw their support for Collomb and Cucherat - meaning the end of an era for Collomb's Lyon.

[parochial boy]

On another topic, crocodile tears at the ready, but (ex-)Lyon mayor Gérard Collomb (and ex-Socialist) makes an alliance with LR for the second round, whereby he steps down in favour of the LR candidate for the Lyon métropole; and they return the favour for LREM's Yann Cucherat in the municipality. LREM promptly disown the alliance and withdraw their support for Collomb and Cucherat - meaning the end of an era for Collomb's Lyon.

Do you think that might allow the PS candidate to pull it off?

EÉLV have the best shot I think, they're trying to sort out a joint left list for the second round, but still to be seen if they pull it off. I'd imagine they should win Lyon Municipalty, but the métropole will be tricker - I think David Kimelfeld as a third wheel will be interesting to watch if he pulls a big chunk of Collomb's support, but don't really know.

[parochial boy]

On another topic, crocodile tears at the ready, but (ex-)Lyon mayor Gérard Collomb (and ex-Socialist) makes an alliance with LR for the second round, whereby he steps down in favour of the LR candidate for the Lyon métropole; and they return the favour for LREM's Yann Cucherat in the municipality. LREM promptly disown the alliance and withdraw their support for Collomb and Cucherat - meaning the end of an era for Collomb's Lyon.

Do you think that might allow the PS candidate to pull it off?

EÉLV have the best shot I think, they're trying to sort out a joint left list for the second round, but still to be seen if they pull it off. I'd imagine they should win Lyon Municipalty, but the métropole will be tricker - I think David Kimelfeld as a third wheel will be interesting to watch if he pulls a big chunk of Collomb's support, but don't really know.

Did LREM decided who will they support in city and in the metro?

Not that I have seen - although from what I have seen the bigger issue for them seems to be the Laurent Wauquiez link rather than an alliance with the right in principle. There have been LR-LREM alliances elsewhere, eg in Thomas Cazenave has swung behing Nicolas Florian in Bordeaux, and it seems like there will also be alliances in Clermont-Ferrand among others.

[parochial boy]

6 days to go, a couple of last minute updates.

In Lyon municipality, the left formed a joint list around EÉLV candidate Grégory Doucet, and now seem favoured to win it. Not sure what's what with the metro.

In Lille, Martine Aubry looks like she is being seriously threated by EÉLV's Stéphane Baly. Some degree of fatigue with her settling in I think.

Most interesting in Marseille, which is starting to look like a serious possibility of a win for the left. EÉLV, PS, LFI and the PCF have all united around Michèle Rubirola. In recent days, a poll come out showing her edging out LR's (previously hot favourite) Martine Vassal by 36% to 29%. This has been made worse by a split in the right camp, dissident Bruno Gilles staying in the race separately from Vassal; but also, over the last couple of days accusations of members of Vassal's list trying to organise some instances of absentee voting fraud have emerged. Which obviously doesn't look good.

Fwiw, Marseille's municipal council is elected the same way as Lyon and Paris - that is by "secteur " (a secteur is two arrondissements, basically), with the win bonus coming at the Secteur level, not for Marseille as a whole. Would be a surprising and very welcome win for the left if they did get Marseille back, having lost the city back in 1995.