The municipal elections in France were marked on Sunday by a vague environmentalist in several big cities, where the presidential party recorded many defeats.
Abstention has reached a historic level: almost 60% of voters shunned this second round, organized more than three and a half months after the first, coronavirus forces.
Very soon after the first results, President Emmanuel Macron said he was “concerned about the low turnout” and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (radical left) called this election a “civic strike”.
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But beyond this abstention of an unprecedented level, it is the “green wave” that attracts attention.
Hidalgo re-elected in Paris
Environmentalists will notably seize Lyon and Marseille, the two largest provincial towns in France, and are also given at the top, according to first estimates, in Bordeaux.
And in Paris, their socialist ally Anne Hidalgo was comfortably re-elected with more than 50% of the vote.
The environmentalists impose themselves in this election as the main left force in France, a sign of a political recomposition that is taking place, as in many other European countries.
“What has won is the desire for a concrete ecology, in action, which offers solutions on travel, housing, food”, welcomed Yannick Jadot, MEP and figure of the environmental movement French.
“The challenge today is not to know who the Greens or the socialists have won. We have proven that together, we are able to raise hope, ”said Pierre Jouvet, spokesperson for the PS.
This recomposition of the left behind the environmentalists comes at a time when the party of Emmanuel Macron, who built his victory in the center, is perceived by part of public opinion as carrying out a policy of the right.
The far right, for its part, won the election in Perpignan, a Catalan city of more than 100,000 inhabitants, with the victory of Louis Aliot, the ex-companion of Marine Le Pen, the president of the National Rally (RN).
The “traditional” right, Les Républicains (LR), has kept the city of Toulouse. But it loses to the benefit of the ecologists of the fiefs like Marseilles or Bordeaux.
For the presidential party, the Republic on the March (LREM), which is not in a position of strength in any big city and does not benefit from a deep local anchorage, it is a setback.
Government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye lamented “extremely disappointing scores”, which she said were due to “internal divisions”.
The only small thinning, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who had not endorsed the LREM label, easily won the election in his port city of Le Havre, with 59% of the vote.
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What impact for Macron?
It remains to be seen what impact this election will have on the orientation of the last two years of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term, when green ministers are stationed in Sweden, Finland, Austria and the greens are in full swing ascent to Germany.
Should he give wages to environmentalists? Will he keep his prime minister in office, strengthened by his victory in Le Havre?
The French president, who consults at all costs, but lets nothing filter his intentions, only holds the keys to a possible reshuffle.
He is to meet Edouard Philippe on Monday alone to discuss the follow-up to be given to this election.
Emmanuel Macron had suggested that the coronavirus crisis was going to change things profoundly and said that he had to “reinvent himself”.
He will have to find a delicate balance between the will of the left wing of his party to introduce an ecological inflection without abandoning the liberal choices of the beginnings.
In recent weeks, several defections by deputies have made LREM lose the absolute majority in the National Assembly.
Probably anxious to evacuate this cumbersome election as quickly as possible, Emmanuel Macron has already planned to speak on Monday.
He will give his first responses to the proposals made by the Citizens’ Climate Convention, an assembly of 150 citizens drawn by lot to give color to direct democracy in the country.
Marked by abstention, this ballot will also remain like that of the coronavirus.
After a first round organized at the time when the epidemic was sweeping over France, many precautions were taken for this second round.
Mandatory masks, hydroalcoholic gel and physical distancing were in order for the voting operations, but the images shot on Sunday in various cities showed that people wore very few masks.
France, hard hit by the new coronavirus, has recorded more than 29,750 deaths since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic.
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