France's far right misses key targets in municipal elections

William Horobin, Ania Nussbaum and Samy Adghirni, Bloomberg News on Mar 23, 2026

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Marine Le Pen’s National Rally fell short in its bid to take control of a host of major French cities in Sunday’s municipal election, signaling potential difficulties for the far-right party ahead of next year’s presidential ballot.

The National Rally was defeated in a handful of large municipalities they targeted, including Marseille, Toulon and Nimes. A far-right candidate aligned with Le Pen, however, won in Nice, the fifth-largest city in France.

Le Pen and National Rally President Jordan Bardella sought to use the ballots in 35,000 cities across France to consolidate support ahead of next year’s election, when Emmanuel Macron is barred from running again. And while the far right broadly improved its vote count, the National Rally failed to translate that into key victories in the two-round electoral system.

In an interview with France 2 TV, Le Pen said she was “of course a bit disappointed” by the results in large cities but stressed that her party will become the main opposition party in many municipalities. “There are thousands of city counselors that are entering a lot of city halls in France and who will be able to defend the ideas of the National Rally,” she said, in a reference to officials who gained lower office.

Le Pen and Bardella were seeking to use the regional vote as an opportunity to establish momentum ahead of the 2027 presidential election, with opinion polls showing either of them as front runners for that race. Le Pen has said Bardella would replace her as the party’s official candidate if an appeals court ruling in July upholds a ban on her running.

A survey of 1,000 adults conducted just after polls closed on Sunday by Toluna Harris Interactive found about 35% intended to vote for the National Rally’s Bardella in the first round of next year’s presidential election, well ahead of the 18% who said they planned to vote for the center-right candidate Edouard Philippe, who got the next-highest level of support.

The far right has struggled to anchor itself in regional ballots that are traditionally dominated by centrist parties and independents campaigning on local issues. But in the first round, it improved the share of the vote in most places where it ran candidates in 2020 and recorded huge gains in cities it targeted with well-known national figureheads.

In Nice, Eric Ciotti, who broke from the traditional conservative bloc to back Le Pen two years ago, won with about 48.5% of the vote, according to the interior ministry. While not part of the National Rally, his Union of the Right for the Republic is aligned with the nationalist group.

In some places, the so-called republican front — alliances between parties to merge or stand aside to keep the National Rally out of power — appeared to stand firm. In Marseille, France’s second-largest city, a far-left candidate dropped out after the first round to help consolidate support for the Socialist, Benoit Payan, who won with 54.3% of the vote.

“In Marseille, as everywhere else, the National Rally and its allies are establishing themselves as the leading opposition force, now as the only bulwark against the far left,” Bardella told reporters Sunday night. “Never before has the National Rally and its allies had so many elected officials across France.”

Bardella criticized center-right parties in cities such as Marseille for not joining the National Rally in an effort to defeat the left.

Philippe, a former prime minister for Macron and a potential presidential candidate next year, won in Le Havre. “We have reason to hope when all people of good faith come together in a message of truth and reject extremism and its easy answers,” he said.

Antoine Armand, who briefly served as Macron’s finance minister, was elected mayor of Annecy — making it the first town with a population of more than 100,000 to be held by the president’s centrist Renaissance party.

Le Pen’s party has never managed to score well in Paris and 2026 was no exception. While a rival far-right candidate, Sarah Knafo, made it to the second round, she withdrew to consolidate support behind Rachida Dati, the conservative challenging Socialist Emmanuel Gregoire to be the capital’s mayor.

Gregoire won 50.5% of the vote, according to the ministry of interior, with Dati getting 41.52%. Far-left candidate Sophia Chikirou took around 8% of the vote.

“Of course it’s a disappointment,” Laurent Jacobelli, a National Rally lawmaker, said on France 2 TV, referring to the results in Nimes and Toulon. “There are successes tonight, but it’s clear that in very big towns, when the right decides to let the left win against patriots, well, the left won.”