One year before the presidential election, the National Rally is strengthening its local roots. The party of Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen claimed an “immense victory” on Sunday, March 15, after winning with its allies nearly twenty mayoralties in towns with over 3,500 inhabitants following the first round of municipal elections. Despite setbacks in major cities, the RN and the far right as a whole are making significant progress in small towns, potentially securing a record number of elected officials in municipal councils on the evening of the second round, on Sunday, March 22.
Hundreds of far-right lists have garnered at least 10% of the votes, the threshold required to qualify for a possible second round. Unlike in 2020, where the National Rally had to mainly shine in its strongholds in the north and southeast of the country, the party led by Jordan Bardella is also standing out in new territories, such as Brest (Finistère), Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), and Ajaccio (Corse-du-Sud). It is regaining and surpassing the network established at the end of the first round of the 2014 municipal elections.
In towns with at least 3,500 inhabitants, the RN and other far-right formations are exceeding 10% in 514 municipalities, compared to 444 in 2014, the year of its previous record. This unprecedented performance is solely due to the results achieved in towns with less than 10,000 inhabitants, while a slight decline from 2014 is observed in larger urban areas. This small-scale implantation is particularly noteworthy in Gironde, where the RN won its first two mayoralties on Sunday (Laruscade, 2,800 inhabitants, and Saint-Savin, 3,250 inhabitants), whereas it previously controlled no municipalities in the entire Nouvelle Aquitaine region.
The National Rally and its allies are leading in at least 75 municipalities, mainly in the south of France, compared to only eleven in the first round of 2020. Some strongholds have been secured, with victories from the outset in Perpignan, Hénin-Beaumont, and Fréjus, with scores reaching up to 81.44% in Bruay-la-Buissière. New mayoralties have been conquered, such as Cagnes-sur-Mer, Vauvert, and Nomexy. Most importantly, the far right can dream of major cities where it is in the lead, such as Nice, Toulon, or even Nîmes, despite sometimes low reserves of votes. The RN could even take the second largest city in France, Marseille, where its candidate, Franck Allisio, is in second place, neck-and-neck with the outgoing leftist mayor, Benoît Payan.
However, this first round of municipal elections confirmed the limits of the RN vote. Soundly defeated in Calais, narrowly beaten in Lens, the movement once again showed its weaknesses in larger cities. In Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, Rennes, and Strasbourg, none of the MEPs designated to represent Jordan Bardella’s movement will be present in the second round. The most resounding failure is undoubtedly that of Thierry Mariani in Paris, swept aside with barely 1.5% of the votes. A fiasco in the major cities, which does not bode well one year before the presidential election.
