Hidalgo, 29.33%, Dati, 22.7% and Buzyn, 17.3%. This Sunday, March 15, the first round of the municipal election in Paris saw the outgoing mayor take a very clear advantage over his main opponents. But where did she fill up? In its fiefdoms or in the rocking districts? Can the right hope to overturn the table in the second round? Is LREM definitely in the cabbage? And above all, who benefited from abstention? Difficult to establish certainties for a second round which is more uncertain, but here are some explanations and lessons, in maps.
More than one in two Parisians did not vote
Parisians, visibly en masse in the streets and parks, which annoyed the health authorities, largely shunned the polling stations, with an abstention rate of 57.7%, higher than the national average. This is 13 points less than in 2014. The map of abstention by boroughs is not based on the performance of this or that political family, and it is therefore difficult to draw purely political lessons.
In terms of electoral geography, however, the obvious jumps out: the more we live in the center of the capital, the more we vote, and the more we live on the outskirts, the more we abstain. The arrondissements that voted the least are the three arrondissements of northeast Paris, the 19th, 18th and 20th centuries. More popular neighborhoods, acquired on the left, and in which the low participation did not especially penalize the outgoing mayor.
Hidalgo at the head, ahead of Dati and Buzyn
The connoisseurs of the Parisian electorate are now used to this map of the capital after the election, blue in the west and red in the east. Only the 2017 presidential election had departed from the rule, with a massive vote for Emmanuel Macron, who had exploded the right-left divide.
His standard-bearer for these municipal elections, Agnès Buzyn, who left very late in the campaign after the release of Benjamin Griveaux, failed to cross the 20% mark, claiming only the 9th and 5th arrondissement. For the rest, Dati and Hidalgo each won the stake in their fiefdom, the outgoing mayor even recovering Paris-Center, the brand new Parisian arrondissement, fusion of the first four arrondissements, including the IInd, which fell into the purse of the green in 2014 .
Hidalgo, far from its 2014 scores
Then in the running for the first time, Anne Hidalgo had won 34.40% of the vote six years ago. This is five points more than in 2020. An explanation which is undoubtedly found in the rejection of its balance sheet by some voters, but is mainly explained by the dispersion of votes and in the explosion of the right-left divide: when in 2014 there were only two lists around 10%, there are four this year.
Paris Newsletter
Every morning, the news of your department seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
In the 9th arrondissement, the voice gap is the strongest: the outgoing mayor lost 14.1 points compared to 2014. Anne Hidalgo is mainly filling up in the east, in the most popular districts. It brings together more than 40% of the votes in the 11th, 13th, 19th and 20th arrondissements. In the 20th century, the socialists won 38.1% of the vote.
Conversely, in the east, the socialists are relegated to second or even third position. Anne Hidalgo won 8.1% of the vote in the 16th arrondissement, compared to 18.6% in the 6th arrondissement. The divorce between east and west is complete.
Dati, worse than NKM
An election to the supreme post from the 1st round for Rachida Dati… in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. With 50.7% of the vote, the candidate on the right ends the game there, winning almost 10 points more compared to 2014 (41%). But for the central town hall, Rachida Dati is lagging behind - more than six points - over her rival Anne Hidalgo.
Because of the dispersion of votes, Rachida Dati did worse than Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet in 2014 and lost up to 25 points in the 15th arrondissement of the capital (22.8%), which was key in the election of the mayor of Paris. The crumbling is weaker in the west where the right seems to be able to count on a solid base, but weak.
Unlike Anne Hidalgo, it is in these popular districts that Rachida Dati achieves her lowest scores: 11.3% in the 18th century, 13.9% in the 20th… Best score in the east: 22, 9% in the 12th… In the west, on the other hand, Rachida Dati fills up and gets up to 47.8% in the 16th arrondissement. Which suggests that the votes to go for the second round are in the east, where abstention has also broken records…
Agnès Buzyn redistributes the cards
No more right-left opposition in Paris! The arrival of LREM in the municipalities in Paris has redistributed the cards… and the votes. Although third in the final draw in the first round, Agnès Buzyn came to win votes in all the arrondissements, undermining the political balance at the time.
Agnès Buzyn can count on her "war catch" to ensure good scores in certain districts. Thus, in the IXth, the LREM candidate achieves her best score by collecting 36.9% of the vote thanks to the outgoing mayor, Delphine Bürkli, elected in 2014 under the UMP label, who joined her. Same situation in the 5th arrondissement with Florence Berthout, also elected in 2014 with the UMP, which leads the first round with 28.49% of the vote.
Apart from these two particular arrondissements, Agnès Buzyn receives between 11.5% of the votes in the XXth arrondissement and 23.6% in the XVIth. Like Rachida Dati, the LREM candidate seems to attract more affluent voters in the west than popular districts in the east.
Proof that Agnes Buzyn was far from attracting all the voters of Emmanuel Macron: his result is lower than that of the President of the Republic during the first round of the presidential election, in 2017, in all the districts. Thus, LREM lost, compared to 2017, from 3.1 points in the XVIth to 24.6 points in the XIth. His scores are also lower than those of LREM for the Europeans of 2019, in Paris, where the majority party had won the vote of one in three voters. You will have to go get them if Agnès Buzyn wants to do better in the second round…
Greeners miss an opportunity
The Greens, worn by David Belliard, are increasing in almost all the arrondissements, except in the new Paris Center arrondissement where they lose 5.6 points, compared to the municipal elections of 2014. But the progression - from 0.5 to 4 , 5 points - is shy, even disappointing compared to the ecological scores in other polls and in other cities. In the general picture, this translates into slightly less than two additional points compared to 2014 (8.86%).
It is clear that EELV has not been able to transform its test of the European elections in the capital: while they had managed to come out on top in the 10th, 18th, 19th and 20th arrondissements, they only get between 11.4% and 17.1%, their best score, in the 18th century.
There is no doubt that Anne Hidalgo's ecological program brought together EELV voters. David Belliard's electoral geography is more or less similar to that of the outgoing mayor: better scores in the east than in the west. EELV gathered only 4% in the 7th and 16th districts against 11.9% in the 12th. It remains to be seen whether Anne Hidalgo and David Belliard will take advantage of this proximity during the second round.