France’s municipal elections will be telling for Europe

Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice. He posts at @Mij_Europe.

Next week’s French municipal elections may be local in scope, but their implications are unmistakably national — and European.

When French voters head to the polls to elect roughly 35,000 mayors across their villages, towns and major cities, they will offer up the clearest indication yet of the country’s political mood ahead of next year’s presidential election, which could both fundamentally reshape France and destabilize the EU.

Municipal contests rarely predict presidential outcomes, as local personalities, alliances and grievances often blur the national picture. But with early polling for next year’s race already giving the far-right National Rally party (RN) a commanding advantage, the local vote carries unusual significance. The question is no longer whether the far right can compete nationally, but whether the political forces that once stopped it — the “Republican Front” — still exist.

Several mayoral races in particular will serve as early stress tests for France’s fragmented political center.

The port city of Le Havre, for example, will likely prove especially consequential. Incumbent Mayor and former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe remains one of the most credible mainstream figures capable of challenging the far right next year, and current polling suggests he could attract around 16 percent of the national vote — enough to emerge as a unifying candidate if the country’s divided center were to consolidate behind him.

A Le Havre defeat, however, would destroy Philippe’s presidential prospects before they even materialize. And the most recent polls suggest he could lose to a moderate-left coalition led by unionist Jean-Paul Lecoq in the second round despite leading in the first.

Then, further south, the three Mediterranean cities of Nice, Marseille and Toulon will reveal whether the RN is able to translate its national momentum into actual governing power in some major urban centers. And while Toulon has elected a far-right mayor before, victories in Marseille or Nice would mark an unprecedented breakthrough.

Nice, one of the country’s most conservative large cities, will perhaps be the most telling battleground, with incumbent Mayor Christian Estrosi from President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance facing off against Eric Ciotti, the former head of the Republicans who broke away to align with RN. It’s a race that will offer a preview of next year’s central problem: Will moderate conservative voters ultimately hold the line against the far right, or drift toward it in a presidential runoff?

The most recent polls show Estrosi is expected to lose, which is a troubling sign for the country’s moderates. If affluent traditionally Republican voters are willing to accept local alliances with the RN, it’s possible that resistance to a far-right presidency could weaken dramatically.

Finally, Marseille presents a different but equally important test, as Socialist Mayor Benoit Payan is facing RN candidate Franck Allisio in what looks to be a neck-and-neck first round. Here, again, the decisive factor will be tactical voting — whether centrists, conservatives and left-wing voters will unite behind a moderate candidate to block the far right.

Such alliances once formed the backbone of France’s so-called Republican Front, the informal coalition that delivered Macron victory over far-right leader Marine Le Pen in both 2017 and 2022. So an RN victory in Marseille would amount to a political earthquake — not only because of the city’s size but because it would suggest this defensive alliance is collapsing.

Paris, by contrast, may offer fewer national clues. The capital remains resistant to the far right, though nationalist voters there are increasingly favoring firebrand Éric Zemmour’s Reconquest movement over the RN. And the main contest is pitting Socialist Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire against center-right Culture Minister Rachida Dati, reflecting intra-mainstream competition rather than ideological realignment.

The most recent polls show Estrosi is expected to lose, which is a troubling sign for the country’s moderates. | Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images

In short, the deeper story lies beyond the headline cities.

France’s traditional governing parties — the Socialists on the center left and the Republicans on the center right — remain entrenched in local governments despite their ongoing near-collapse at the national level since 2017. Unusually low turnout during 2020’s pandemic-disrupted municipal elections helped preserve this local dominance as well.

But poor results in the coming weeks could finally shatter hopes of a revival. Even Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s hard-left French Unbowed is campaigning aggressively, less with the goal of winning town halls and more to weaken Socialist rivals and ensure there’s no moderate left figure capable of challenging him in the presidential race.

Meanwhile, the RN is running candidates in more municipal races than ever before. Even without capturing major cities, incremental gains across smaller towns — particularly in the country’s south and northwest — would deepen its governing experience and normalize its presence at the local level.

Ultimately, these elections will hinge on second-round voting patterns. For decades, French democracy has relied on the willingness of voters to unite across ideological divides to block extremist outcomes. Whether that instinct remains in 2027 is perhaps the defining question of next year’s race.

And while the municipal results won’t decide France’s presidency, they may tell us something more important: if the coalition that once kept the far right from power is merely weakened, or already gone.