French municipal elections, 2008

The French municipal elections of 2008 were held on 9 and 16 March to elect the municipal councils of France's 36,782 communes. The first task of each newly constituted municipal council was to elect a mayor.

Municipal councilors, and the mayors they elect, ordinarily serve a term of six years. However those who took office following the last municipal elections, held on 11 and 18 March 2001, had their terms extended to seven years by an Act of the French parliament designed to avoid an overloading of the electoral calendar in 2007.

Results

The left gained back grounds lost in 2001 and in previous elections and sent a message of warning to President Nicolas Sarkozy, in power since 2007. The PS gained cities like Toulouse, Strasbourg, Amiens, Saint-Étienne and Reims. The left also held on easily to most of its cities, including Paris and Lyon. The close election in Marseille, however, was won by the UMP incumbent. The right did poorly but held on to some of its cities like Bordeaux, Le Havre, Nice, Toulon or Aix-en-Provence. Among right-wing gains were the cities of Chaumont, Le-Puy-en-Velay, and Calais (ending 37 years of Communist control).

François Bayrou's centrist MoDem did poorly, although MoDem incumbents generally won. However, Bayrou himself was defeated (by the PS) in his hometown of Pau. Between the two rounds the MoDem followed three strategies- maintain its list in the runoffs, if qualified; ally with the right (as in Toulouse); or ally with the left (as in Marseille).

The far-right FN did extremely poorly, winning only 0.93% nationwide and qualifying for the runoff in only 7 cities with 30,000+ population (40 in 2001, 105 in 1995).

The Greens regained grounds lost in 2007, the most notable Green gain was by Dominique Voynet in Montreuil. However, the Green vote was halved in Paris over 2001.

The PCF held most of its ground in its Seine-Saint-Denis strongholds (despite most incumbents facing Socialist candidates) but also in other PCF cities (Nanterre, Arles). It gained Dieppe and Vierzon while losing Calais (to UMP) and Aubervilliers (to PS).

Important races

Paris

The popular Socialist incumbent Bertrand Delanoë was very easily re-elected. Françoise de Panafieu represented the centre-right UMP as the right tried, in vain, to regain the capital. Among high-profile candidates on her lists is the Justice Minister Rachida Dati, UMP elected in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.

Bordeaux

In Bordeaux, the incumbent Mayor and former Prime Minister Alain Juppé, defeated in the 2007 parliamentary election, stood for re-election. The Socialist candidate was Aquitaine President Alain Rousset. The centrist MoDem, led by François Bayrou, announced its support for Juppé. Juppé was re-elected by the first round with over 56% of votes cast, even improving over 2001.

Lyon

In 2001, the Socialist Gérard Collomb won the country's second largest city from the UDF. Lyon had been considered a stronghold for the centrist UDF in previous years. In 2008, former UMP Transportation Minister Dominique Perben tried to win back the city. Surprisingly, the two highly presumed candidates for the centrist MoDem and the far-right National Front, Azouz Begag and Bruno Gollnisch respectively both announced their intentions not to stand.

In February, after a fight with MoDem leader François Bayrou, the MoDem list leader integrated the UMP list, but Bayrou found another list leader. The MoDem list was also shaken after one of its list was rejected because one of its candidates was also on a FN list.

With his sky-high popularity, Collomb was re-elected by the first round and Perben himself was defeated in his sector.

Marseille

In the country's third largest city, Jean-Claude Gaudin of the UMP faced Socialist Senator Jean-Noël Guérini, FN candidate Stéphane Ravier, and MoDem MEP Jean-Luc Bennahmias. The race was very close and both sides had a chance to win, but Gaudin was re-elected narrowly.

Nice

The right was divided in this generally right-wing city, with incumbent mayor Jacques Peyrat staging a dissident candidacy against UMP candidate Christian Estrosi. Estrosi won 38% to Peyrat's 23%. However, the PS candidate Patrick Allemand, with his 22%, also qualified for a three-way runoff.

Rennes

In this Socialist city, longtime mayor Edmond Hervé (since 1977) did not lead the PS list in this election, he was replaced by Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande mayor Daniel Delaveau, who was easily elected. The MoDem candidate, with her 10%, also won a place in the runoff.

Toulouse

Jean-Luc Moudenc of the UMP faced a very tough race against the left, which swept the city in the Presidential and Legislative elections held in 2007. Contrary to polls, Moudenc came out on top of the first round with 42% to the PS's 39%. Following the first round, he merged his lists with the MoDem. However, he lost to Pierre Cohen, the PS candidate.

Lille

Socialist incumbent Martine Aubry ran for re-election, with 6 candidates opposing her. The Greens, although they qualified for the runoff, preferred to merge with Aubry's PS lists, as did the MoDem, which chose to merge with the Left list in Lille, and for the Right one in other cities.

Strasbourg

The capital of Alsace, Strasbourg was gained by the right from the left in 2001. However, in 2008, the UMP incumbent Fabienne Keller could be potentially defeated by the PS's Roland Ries. A poll showed her defeated 53–47 in the runoff.

Ethnic pluralism

For the first time ever, the three main parties (center-right UMP, centrist MoDem, and center-left PS) put on top of a 50-odd lists candidates with a non-European ethnic background ("''candidats de la diversité''"), most either from North Africa, a few from the French Caribbean departments or sub-Saharan Africa, most against incumbent mayors from the opposite party, thus with lower chances to succeed.

There were only seven incumbent mayors in Metropolitan France with non-European roots, all in rural communes with less than 5,000 inhabitants where the percentage of foreign stock population is close to nil:
*Auguste Senghor (a nephew of Léopold Sedar Senghor), mayor of Le May-sur-Èvre ( Maine-et-Loire, 3,891 inhabitants) in 1977–1989 and 1995–2008, was elected mayor of Saint-Briac ( Ille et Vilaine, 2,054 inhabitants) where the incumbent mayor Brice Lalonde was no longer a candidate
*Xavier Cadoret, born in Morocco as Karim Kadouri, PS mayor of Saint-Gérand-le-Puy ( Allier, 1,029 inhabitants) since the death of the previous mayor in 1991, reelected in 1995 and 2001
* Éric Besson, born in Morocco from a Lebanese mother, since 1995 mayor (formerly PS) of Donzère (Drôme, 4,700 inhabitants)
*Mahfoud Aomar (Algerian parents), nonpartisan mayor of Guerchy (Yonne, 601 inhabitants) since 2001
*Kaddour Derrar, divers gauche mayor of Condette ( Pas-de-Calais, 2,675 inhabitants) since 2001, when the former mayor endorsed him as his successor
*Pierre Pluton ( Afro-Caribbean), UMP mayor of Évry-Grégy-sur-Yerre (Seine-et-Marne, 2,060 inhabitants) since 2001
*Jean-Claude Gautry ( Afro-Caribbean), mayor of Paroy (Seine-et-Marne, 198 inhabitants) since 2001

The six who were again candidates in their ''commune'' were reelected in the first round with results varying from 60% to 88% of the votes, and Auguste Senghor, candidate in another commune far away from the previous one, was the only candidate elected there in the first round with 52% of the votes.

Two more small municipal councils elected mayors with non-European roots: Volvic (Puy-de-Dôme activist Mohand Hamoumou (miscellaneous right) and Morey ( Saône-et-Loire, 184 inhabitants), Kader Atteye, whose parents came from Djibouti, but 5 councillors out of 11 resigned in protest over the election of a black mayorAlexis De La Fontaine
La fronde des conseillers municipaux contre un maire noir
RTL, 31 March 2008

Only one ''candidat de la diversité'' heading a list in a town of more than 10,000 inhabitants was elected in the first round: Eddie Aït, already a regional councillor and departmental leader for the Left Radical Party (centre-left) beat the incumbent UMP mayor of Carrières-sous-Poissy (Yvelines

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