France’s Socialists hold on to power in major cities in election boost for mainstream. 7 hours ago. Hugh SchofieldParis correspondent. Getty Images. Socialists and allies held on to power France’s big four cities – Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Lille – on a local election night that offered hopes for mainstream parties in next year’s presidential elections.. The new aspirants of the far-left and far-right also made gains – notably in Nice for an ally of Marine Le Pen and Roubaix in the north for the France Unbowed (LFI) party.. But the big lesson of the evening was the failure of alliances between mainstream left and LFI, with voters turning to the centre and right in long-time Socialist Party (PS) strongholds like Clermont-Ferrand and Brest.. On the contrary, in cities like Paris, Marseille and Lille – where incumbent Socialists steered clear of the far-left because of accusations of sectarian anti-Semitism in its ranks – left-wing administrations were comfortably returned.. Lyon – where the ecologist mayor Gregory Doucet did ally himself with LFI and still won – was seen as a case apart, because the right-wing challenger, businessman Jean-Michel Aulas, ran a poor campaign.. “My conclusion from tonight is that the LFI wins nothing – and what is worse it is the LFI that brings about defeat,” said Pierre Jouvet, PS secretary-general.. There had been calls for a boycott of LFI after one of its parliamentary assistants was charged with incitement to murdering a far-right student in Lyon. The party’s firebrand leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon also enraged his enemies when in a speech he seemed to joke about the Jewishness of the late sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein.. But after round one of voting a week ago, many Socialist and Green candidates decided to overlook their objections to the far-left party and formed what the right then termed “alliances of shame” in order – they hoped – to secure victory.. The alliances between left and far-left also failed to perform in Toulouse, Strasbourg, Poitiers, Limoges and Tulle. The last is the electoral fief of the former PS president François Hollande, whose calls for a boycott of LFI went unheeded there.. But reacting to the results Sunday evening the LFI’s Manuel Bompard pointed to the party’s first-round victory in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, as well as Sunday’s win in Roubaix.. “Tonight we have made the demonstration that nothing can stand in the way of a people on the move. Next year the new France will sweep away the world of [President] Macron and his nefarious policies,” he said.. Grégoire’s win in Paris was in line with opinion polls and confirmed the capital’s reputation as a mainly left-wing city. His predecessor Anne Hidalgo had made her mark with vigorously anti-car policies which were in general supported by voters.. Right-wing Rachida Dati – a pugnacious former minister under presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Emmanuel Macron – proved to be a divisive candidate, and her impen
