On the French local elections of 2020: Vive le surge de vert!
The French local elections finally concluded yesterday, having been originally scheduled to take place on 15 March; they were postponed due to the effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The most sensational story of these elections was the many triumphs by the main French Green Party, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV). In major French cities (those with more than 100,000 people), EELV captured the mayoralties of Annecy, Besancon, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, and Tours. They also performed impressively in the munciipal elections for those cities as well. However, in the midst of all this triumph there was one notable setback for them: Eric Pollie, the first Green Mayor of a major French city, decided to contest the mayoral election there as an "Independent Left" (divers gauche) candidate instead. Furthermore they narrowly missed out on unseating former PS leader Martine Aubry from her post as Mayor of Lille; in the second round she held on by 227 votes, a sigh of relief for the beleaguered PS (Parti Socialiste). Whilst a pressing need for environmental action and a greener way of living, especially given the causes of the coronavirus crisis, was a key factor in their surge, they also won a lot of disappointed LREM (Le Republic-En Marche) voters in more prosperous French communes in the south of France.
LREM, which was formed by current French President Emmanuel Macron as a means of obtaining the presidency and breaking through the red-blue merry-go-round, had little support locally to begin with since at the last French local elections it simply did not exist, and had acquired the defections of only a few mayors since then. None of them were re-elected and LREM failed to win any other mayoralties of any major French cities either. In the three years since M. Macron was elected President of France, LREM, whilst building up support nationally, has not been able to acquire a substantial local base since France does not hold local by-elections and party defections (other to "Independent Left" or "Independent Right") are not as common in France as in Britain despite a wider array of political parties at a local level in France. In Paris where it had hoped to win the mayoralty from Anne Hidalgo (PS), it was undermined by an Independent LREM list, which split the LREM vote enough to deny it even the runner-up spot, which was won by Les Republicans (LR), France's main liberal-conservative party. The Radical Movement (Mouvement Radical, a liberal movement similar to NEOS in Austria and the Radical Liberal Party in Denmark), which aligned with LREM, lost both its main mayoralties as well, mainly since its recent alliance with LREM caused a significant split in MR. involving its former president Sylvia Pinel and her allies.
LR and PS did relatively well, managing to recover support they had lost in the 2017 Presidential election and subsequent National Assembly elections to LREM and to a lesser extent the extreme nationalist Rassemblent National (National Rally) party led by infamous racist Marine Le Pen. One of PS' most notable scalps of the election was winning the mayoralty of Saint-Denis, one of the most socialist and ethnically diverse parts of France in the "centre rouge" (red belt) of Parisian suburbia, from the French Communist Party who had held it since 1912; this happened mainly because of the changing demographics there and gradual deindustrialisation which is undermining the PCF's core base in the same way that the decline of traditional industry has been a key factor in the decline of the long-term fortunes of the Dutch Socialist Party. The PCF's ally in Reunion (an overseas department of France near Madagascar), the PCR, did win the mayoralty of Saint-Paul from LR in compensation. Apart from the Green gains LR endured two notable losses during these French local elections; the Prime Minister of France, Edouard Phillippe, gained the mayoralty of Le Havre in a rare piece of good news for M. Macron, and RN's Louis Aliot, a former partner of Marine Le Pen, won the mayoralty of Perpignon, located near the Pyrenees, from LR. The localist liberal Union of Independent Democrats (UDI) mayor of Amiens, Brigitte Foure, was re-elected, as was independent conservative mayor of Angers Christophe Bechu.
The coronavirus pandemic led to the highest abstention rate in French local elections ever-60%, meaning only 40% turned out to vote, although this is better than local elections in the United Kingdom, especially since French local elections have proportional representation whereas English and Welsh local elections still use first past the post. This however represents a drop of 12.4% from the last French local elections of 2014. Without this factor, turnout would have remained similar to that of 2014.
The most sensational story of these elections was the many triumphs by the main French Green Party, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV). In major French cities (those with more than 100,000 people), EELV captured the mayoralties of Annecy, Besancon, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, and Tours. They also performed impressively in the munciipal elections for those cities as well. However, in the midst of all this triumph there was one notable setback for them: Eric Pollie, the first Green Mayor of a major French city, decided to contest the mayoral election there as an "Independent Left" (divers gauche) candidate instead. Furthermore they narrowly missed out on unseating former PS leader Martine Aubry from her post as Mayor of Lille; in the second round she held on by 227 votes, a sigh of relief for the beleaguered PS (Parti Socialiste). Whilst a pressing need for environmental action and a greener way of living, especially given the causes of the coronavirus crisis, was a key factor in their surge, they also won a lot of disappointed LREM (Le Republic-En Marche) voters in more prosperous French communes in the south of France.
LREM, which was formed by current French President Emmanuel Macron as a means of obtaining the presidency and breaking through the red-blue merry-go-round, had little support locally to begin with since at the last French local elections it simply did not exist, and had acquired the defections of only a few mayors since then. None of them were re-elected and LREM failed to win any other mayoralties of any major French cities either. In the three years since M. Macron was elected President of France, LREM, whilst building up support nationally, has not been able to acquire a substantial local base since France does not hold local by-elections and party defections (other to "Independent Left" or "Independent Right") are not as common in France as in Britain despite a wider array of political parties at a local level in France. In Paris where it had hoped to win the mayoralty from Anne Hidalgo (PS), it was undermined by an Independent LREM list, which split the LREM vote enough to deny it even the runner-up spot, which was won by Les Republicans (LR), France's main liberal-conservative party. The Radical Movement (Mouvement Radical, a liberal movement similar to NEOS in Austria and the Radical Liberal Party in Denmark), which aligned with LREM, lost both its main mayoralties as well, mainly since its recent alliance with LREM caused a significant split in MR. involving its former president Sylvia Pinel and her allies.
LR and PS did relatively well, managing to recover support they had lost in the 2017 Presidential election and subsequent National Assembly elections to LREM and to a lesser extent the extreme nationalist Rassemblent National (National Rally) party led by infamous racist Marine Le Pen. One of PS' most notable scalps of the election was winning the mayoralty of Saint-Denis, one of the most socialist and ethnically diverse parts of France in the "centre rouge" (red belt) of Parisian suburbia, from the French Communist Party who had held it since 1912; this happened mainly because of the changing demographics there and gradual deindustrialisation which is undermining the PCF's core base in the same way that the decline of traditional industry has been a key factor in the decline of the long-term fortunes of the Dutch Socialist Party. The PCF's ally in Reunion (an overseas department of France near Madagascar), the PCR, did win the mayoralty of Saint-Paul from LR in compensation. Apart from the Green gains LR endured two notable losses during these French local elections; the Prime Minister of France, Edouard Phillippe, gained the mayoralty of Le Havre in a rare piece of good news for M. Macron, and RN's Louis Aliot, a former partner of Marine Le Pen, won the mayoralty of Perpignon, located near the Pyrenees, from LR. The localist liberal Union of Independent Democrats (UDI) mayor of Amiens, Brigitte Foure, was re-elected, as was independent conservative mayor of Angers Christophe Bechu.
The coronavirus pandemic led to the highest abstention rate in French local elections ever-60%, meaning only 40% turned out to vote, although this is better than local elections in the United Kingdom, especially since French local elections have proportional representation whereas English and Welsh local elections still use first past the post. This however represents a drop of 12.4% from the last French local elections of 2014. Without this factor, turnout would have remained similar to that of 2014.
Comments
Post a Comment