‘Unpleasant surprises’: Will key French cities elect far-right mayors?

Before next year’s presidential race, local elections which conclude Sunday indicate fractured political landscape.

Paris, France – France heads to the polls on Sunday for local elections to usher in mayors and city council members, in a final round of voting.

The municipal elections, which come a year before France’s presidential vote, offer a glimpse of the country’s political landscape.

The first round on Sunday showed France’s far-right party, the National Rally, performing slightly less well than predicted. But it still made gains in key southern cities, including Nice, Toulon and Marseille.

“The results are worse than expected for the National Rally, and the far right in general, because their goal was to establish a foothold and win medium-sized cities, to scale up, but that doesn’t seem to be happening,” Jean-Francois Poupelin, a journalist at Marsactu in Marseille, told Al Jazeera.

“On the other hand, they’ve already increased the number of municipalities they will run, compared to 2020.”