Fog warning in March. Without doubt, the French will never have taken the road to polling stations to elect their new mayor in such an uncertain political landscape. Until then, the results of the municipal elections reflected a “pink wave” or a “blue wave”, the color of which was almost systematically the reverse reflection of that of the government majority.
But that was before Emmanuel Macron exploded the political spectrum and stifled left and right combined. The Europeans of last year had amplified the recomposition of political life around LREM and the RN. Will the municipal elections, the first local election in the Macron era, confirm this? The stakes are high for the Head of State who opens with this election a long sequence which must lead him to the presidential election of 2022.
But nothing is less certain, the parties of Stanislas Guérini and Marine Le Pen can only align a handful of outgoing elected officials. However, the polls seem to confirm this: the French remain attached to their mayors in a context of distrust, however, increasingly tense vis-à-vis elected officials. The municipal elections of March 15 and 22 will also allow us to see if the environmental push is confirmed in favor of EELV. At the expense of the PS with whom the Greens are allied today in many municipalities? It was not obvious then that all of the political forces, macronists in mind, largely poured out their speeches.
"Completing the old right-left divide"
Confusion of programs, confusion of labels ... Half of the candidates invested or supported by LREM belong to other formations, mainly on the right. In cities with fewer than 9,000 inhabitants, the Ministry of the Interior has flatly decided to no longer assign political colors to the lists.
"Me, I would not like to be in the place of journalists on the evening of the first round because the pie chart which shows the distribution of cities by party will be impossible to do and that makes us laugh! ", Savored in advance a minister for whom" these municipal come to complete the old right-left divide that we wanted to break ". A "cuckoo strategy", denounced by LR as by the PS, which causes very many dissent at LREM. The support, sometimes to the forceps, for mayors in place does not always respond to the original promise of renewal of macronism expected by local walkers ...
The most spectacular illustration of the dissensions: in Biarritz, two ministers of the current government stand on rival lists! It must be said that the government in place strongly encouraged the ministers to wet the shirt in battle. At least ten should be on the starting line. But the situation is hardly clearer in Paris and Lyon where two LREM lists compete. In these two big cities, always scrutinized during municipal deadlines, the outcome is more uncertain than ever, as well as in Marseille where the succession of Jean-Claude Gaudin, whose record is disputed, is open.
