French Municipal elections - 2nd round 28 June 2020

[Antonio the Sixth]

Looks like the EÉLV list has won in Lyon Métropole as well as in Lyon city.

Yup. What a humiliation for Collomb. This is the traitor's reward.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Communists also lost Arles. Their decay is slow but inevitable.

Aubry and Moudenc have both indeed survived, so that's two big cities the ecologists narrowly lost. Good for Aubry, honestly. She's gotten a raw deal already since 2012.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Looks like Marseille is headed toward a hung municipal council. In the convoluted Electoral College-style setup, the united left ticket narrowly lost the 8th district to a dissident list, and I've heard (though it's not confirmed) that the right is holding on to the 6th. In that case, Rubirola would have a plurality but not an absolute majority. I'm still thinking she ends up mayor, but in a city like Marseille, who knows.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Out of 236 cities with more than 30,000 inhabitants

18 LFI, PCF (25 in 2014)
42 PS (51)
16 DVG (6)
10 EELV (2)
Total left: 86 (84 in 2014)

23 Center (LREM, UDI, MoDem) (29 in 2014)

77 LR (102)
43 DVD (18)
Total right: 120 (120)

RN: 3 (2)
Divers: 4 (1)

So overall not necessarily a great success for the left which barely improve from the disaster of 2014.

One thing that is increasingly becoming clear (you can see the trend first taking shape in 2001, but 2014 and 2020 have accentuated it) is that the left is coming to dominate big cities while the right generally does well in medium-sized ones. Note that it's different from the historical pattern of small towns leaning right (which explains why the Senate has remained controlled by the right from 1946 to 2011). What we seem to see lately is that the left crushes it in the "regional metropoles". Of the 11 cities with more than 200K inhabitants, it will now control 8 or 9 (depending on what happens in Marseille), the same or more as its peak in 2008 and up from 7 in 2014 and 6 in 2001. If you weigh them by population, left control was 63% in 2001, 75% in 2008, 68% in 2014 and 72 to 86(!!)% this year. That's a historic level of domination, especially given the left's shoddy state nationwide.

Looking at cities between 100K and 200K, meanwhile, the left controls 14/30 representing 45% of their population. In 2014, it was 12 and 40%. In 2008, it was 21 and 70(!)%. And in 2001, it was 13 and 43%. So the left is more or less back to its 2001 levels there, already a far less impressive performance. Its high mark from 2008, when you had cities like Reims flipping, seems very hard to replicate at this point.

I haven't taken a look at cities under 100K yet, but if you applied your labels the same way I did, then out of cities between 30K and 100K, the left should hold just 63/195, actually down from 65 in 2014. And 2014 was almost certainly a low point to begin with. So, how you interpret these results really depends on which cities you're looking at.

[Antonio the Sixth]

At the very least, we might see these results as room for cautious optimism that the French left has arrested its recent vertiginous decline - something that needed to happen before it can move forward.

I'm pessimistic because there is sh**t turnout and the inevitable egos will clash when it comes to the Presidency. Which in turn just puts people off.

Faure has already said PS is ready to back an EELV candidate. I'm sure  Mélenchon will still do his thing, but given how much of a failure he's been so far, I could see his support implode as left-wing voters consolidate to stop another FBM-Panzergirl matchup.

It still depends on whether EELV has a decent candidate to run, of course. That hasn't worked out well for them in the past.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Rubirola dutifully elected mayor in Marseille today, after a good deal of shenanigans and theatrics including a walkout by RN councilors, a suspension of the sitting that went on for hours, and a protracted wooing of PS dissident Samia Ghali, who tried to leverage her votes into the position of first deputy (she'll end up with the second spot instead). In the end, the vote was 51-41. Rubirola got the support of all Ghali councilors and even one originally from a dissident right-winger. That's an absolute majority, though not exactly a comfortable one.

And with that, the left is indeed in control of 8 of the 10 largest cities. And of those, 5 of them are women. Gender parity has been lagging in most areas of French politics, so that's very nice to see.

[Antonio the Sixth]

A dissident right-winger who was originally, in 2014, a dissident left-winger who allied with the right between the two rounds to win reelection in her turf. And one of the last bona fide Guérini loyalists still around (Ghali is a former protégé of his, but seem to have taken their distances over the last 5-6 years).

Oh lol, that's amazing. Gotta love that city.