On Sunday, France held the second round of municipal elections, with the main event being the mayoral election in Paris. The left-wing candidate, Emmanuel Grégoire, secured a solid victory over the conservative candidate Rachida Dati with 51.8% of the vote. In Marseille, the outgoing left-wing independent mayor, Benoît Payan, was defeating the ambitions of the National Rally (RN) and its list led by Franck Allisio. According to the Argentine News Agency, both in Paris and Marseille, the winning candidates refused to form an alliance with the far left, which is embroiled in accusations of antisemitism. In the city of Lyon, the outgoing mayor Grégory Doucet (united left) obtained 54% of the vote, allied with the party of La France Insoumise. The La France Insoumise deputy, David Guiraud, won in Roubaix, in the department of the North, one of the cities where the left-wing movement of Jean-Luc Mélenchon had the greatest ambitions, following the legal problems of the former mayor, affiliated with the right. The former prime minister of Emmanuel Macron, the center-right Édouard Philippe, who had pinned his presidential candidacy on his re-election as mayor of Le Havre. Voter turnout in the second round of the municipal elections could reach between 57% and 57.5%, according to estimates from several polling institutes, which represents an increase compared to the 2020 elections, which were heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but well below the 2014 turnout (62.13%).
