Everything about French Municipal Elections 2008 totally explained
The
French municipal elections of 2008 were held on
9 March in that year (with a second round of voting taking place, where necessary, one week later on
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 for that commune.
Municipal councillors, 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-Etienne 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
See also: Paris municipal election, 2008
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 capital's
VIIe arrondissement..
Results below give only citywide raw vote totals, not results by sectors.
Bordeaux
In
Bordeaux, the incumbent Mayor and former
Prime Minister Alain Juppé, defeated in the
French legislative election, 2007 stood for re-election. The
Socialist candidate was be
Aquitaine President Alain Rousset. The centrist
MoDem, led by
François Bayrou announced its support for Mr. Juppé.
Mr. Juppé was re-elected by the first round with over 56% of votes cast, even improving over 2001.
Lyon
See also: Lyon municipal election, 2008
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.
Results below give only citywide raw vote totals, not results by sectors.
Marseille
See also: Marseille municipal election, 2008
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.
Results below give only citywide raw vote totals, not results by sectors.
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%, is also qualified for a three-way runoff.
Rennes
In this
Socialist city, longtime mayor
Edmond Hervé (since 1977) didn't 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.
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) since 1989, 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, 4,202 inhabitants) elected the
Harki 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 mayor
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, 13,472 inhabitants) with 62.4% of the votes and was elected as mayor. Another was elected mayor after the second round, Philippe N'Guyen Tahnn (
PS) in
Vernon (
Eure, 23,700 inhabitants)
The left-wing list headed by Samia Ghali (
PS vice-president of the
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regional council) won in the first round in the VIIIth
secteur (borough) of
Marseilles (92,100 inhabitants) with 52.30%. Had the left won in Marseilles, she'd been promised the first adjunct-mayorship, finally she was elected mayor of this
secteur, succeeding the incumbent Communist mayor.
The
UMP list headed by Justice minister
Rachida Dati got 49.50% in the first round in the
VIIe arrondissement of Paris (55,700 inhabitants). She was elected
maire d'arrondissement after the second round.
Results
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