Bombay Durpun - Leftists win mayoral elections in Paris and Marseille: projections

Most of France's almost 35,000 villages, towns and boroughs elected municipal leaders in a first round last weekend, but the races went to run-offs in about 1,500 communes, including bigger urban centres.

The local ballots are being closely watched to gauge the mood on the ground and potential party alliances before the election of a successor to centrist President Emmanuel Macron next year, with the far right scenting its best chance yet at seizing power.

In Paris, Emmanuel Gregoire -- a 48-year-old former deputy of outgoing Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo -- beat right-wing ex-minister Rachida Dati, aged 60.

Former justice and culture minister Dati, a protegee of now-convicted ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, had hoped to seize Paris for the right and become its second female mayor in a row.

"Paris has decided to stay true to its history," Gregoire told a cheering crowd.

In Marseille, the leftist incumbent, Benoit Payan, was comfortably re-elected, beating far-right candidate Franck Allisio, according to projections from several pollsters.

- 'Reasons to hope' -

In the northern port city of Le Havre, declared presidential candidate Edouard Philippe was re-elected, provisional results showed.

Philippe, a centrist former prime minister, is seen as one of the strongest opponents to the RN's potential presidential pick -- whether three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, 57, or her 30-year-old lieutenant Jordan Bardella.

"There are reasons to hope," he told his supporters.

"We, the people of Le Havre, say this to the French today: yes, there are reasons to hope in our creative and ambitious youth, capable of imagining and building a new world that is more respectful of human beings than our own, more mindful of our planet and our future," he said.

Le Pen's far-right party had been hoping for wins in southern urban hubs on Sunday, but early projections largely quashed those ambitions.

The far-right party saw its candidate re-elected last Sunday in the southern city of Perpignan of 120,000 inhabitants -- the largest in France to be run by the far-right party so far.

Overall turnout stood at 57 percent -- the country's lowest in local polls bar the Covid pandemic-affected last edition in 2020.

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M.Arya--BD