Leftists win mayoral elections in Paris and Marseille

The far right sees its best chance yet at seizing power in 2027, but did not look set for an emphatic showing in the local polls.

Most of France's almost 35,000 villages, towns and boroughs elected municipal leaders in a first round last weekend, but the races went to run-offs in about 1,500 communes, including bigger urban centres.

In Paris, Emmanuel Gregoire -- a 48-year-old former deputy of the outgoing Socialist mayor -- beat right-wing ex-minister Rachida Dati, 60, a protegee of now-convicted ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Gregoire hopped on one of the city's iconic rental bikes to head to city hall after the exit polls were released, an AFP journalist said.

"Paris has decided to stay true to its history," a beaming Gregoire told a cheering crowd, as he won a fifth consecutive term for the Socialists in the city of two million people.

He pledged to stand up to the right and far right in the run-up to the 2027 polls.

"Paris will be the heart of the resistance against this alliance of the right, which seeks to take away what we hold most precious and fragile: the simple joy of living together," he said.

- 'Reasons to hope' -

In Marseille, France's second city, the leftist incumbent, Benoit Payan, was comfortably re-elected, beating far-right candidate Franck Allisio, according to projections from several pollsters.

In the northern port city of Le Havre, declared presidential candidate Edouard Philippe was re-elected, initial results showed.

Philippe, a centrist former prime minister, is seen as one of the strongest opponents to the RN's potential presidential pick -- whether Marine Le Pen, 57, or her 30-year-old lieutenant Jordan Bardella.

"There are reasons to hope," Philippe told supporters.

"We, the people of Le Havre, say this to the French today: yes, there are reasons to hope in our creative and ambitious youth, capable of imagining and building a new world that is more respectful of human beings than our own, more mindful of our planet and our future," he said.

In the country's third-largest city of Lyon, a Greens mayor was re-elected to serve its 500,000 inhabitants, exit polls indicated.

- 'Just the beginning' -

Le Pen's far-right party failed to score big wins in the south, with a right-wing candidate beating the RN in the naval port city of Toulon.

But the far-right party secured wins in a number of smaller areas, including the southern town of Carcassonne.

An ally of the far right, Eric Ciotti, won in the southern city of Nice, France's fifth largest.

RN party leader Bardella claimed Nice as a win for his party.

"Tonight's successes are just the beginning," he said.

"The RN and its allies have never had so many elected representatives across French territory," he added.

An RN mayor was re-elected last Sunday in the southern city of Perpignan, which has 120,000 inhabitants.

The hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party lost to the right in the southern city of Toulouse -- the fourth largest nationwide -- on Sunday, exit polls showed.

But the hard left saw a mayor elected in the economically depressed city of Roubaix on the Belgian border.

An LFI mayor won in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis of around 150,000 residents last week.

Overall turnout stood at 57 percent -- the country's lowest in local polls bar the Covid pandemic-affected last edition in 2020.

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