The re-election of former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe as mayor of Le Havre also positions him as a leading candidate to face the far right in next year's presidential election, Politico reports.
The race was a major test for the center-right politician, as he made his bid for the Elysee Palace conditional on securing another term at the helm of the industrial port city, which in the past tended to lean to the left. A poll published before the vote showed Philippe likely to lose to a communist challenger, a result that would have thwarted his plans to run for president.
But Philippe dispelled skeptics by winning the runoff by more than six percentage points. Then, an online Toluna Harris Interactive poll conducted immediately after the polls closed in the national municipal elections showed Philippe on track to finish second in the first round of the 2027 presidential election, though he still trails National Union leader Jordan Bardella by 17 percentage points.
"Everything starts today," Nathalie Loiseau, an MEP from Philippe's Horizons party and one of its influential figures, told POLITICO. "There are reasons for hope."
Philippe, who was the first of the center-right contenders to declare his candidacy for president, is already organizing campaign events, with a large rally scheduled for April 12 in Paris, according to two party officials, although Loiseau declined to confirm the event.
"The people of Le Havre know that there is reason for hope when all people of good will come together and reject the extremes and their simplistic solutions," Philippe said in his victory speech on Sunday from Le Havre.
The politician's strong showing in the first round and his comfortable victory in the run-off brought relief to his allies on Sunday and led some of his most prominent rivals to publicly acknowledge his status as the front-runner.
Justice Minister Géral Darmanin, himself a presidential candidate, called on Philippe to unite centrists behind him.
"Now he has to unite the people around him so that we have a single candidate," Darmanin said on France 2 last week.
A person close to Darmanin told POLITICO that Philippe's performance was "a bucket of cold water" for the justice minister's presidential aspirations.
The 2027 presidential race in France looks likely to be the most significant in a decade, with the far-right National Rally consistently more than 15 percentage points ahead of other parties in the polls.
Despite failing to win high-profile targets such as Marseille, Nîmes and Toulon, the far-right celebrated its performance on Sunday. Bardella told supporters in Paris that the far-right had achieved "the biggest breakthrough in its history," while his mentor Marine Le Pen said the National Rally had achieved "dozens" of regional victories.
The National Rally's biggest victory on Sunday came on the French Riviera, where one of its allies won Nice, France's fifth-most populous city. Political observers, however, were quick to point out that the victory was due more to local right-wing baron-turned-far-right ally Eric Ciotti than to Bardella.
Loiseau said there was no "wave" in these local elections. from the National Assembly, noting the party's failure to make a decisive breakthrough in large and medium-sized cities.
But she said the slow and steady rise of the far right, including in rural areas that were once strongholds of moderate politics, should not be underestimated.
Bardella is the most likely candidate for the National Assembly next year unless Marine Le Pen successfully appeals the five-year ban she was given as a result of a conviction for abuse of power.
Bardella's popularity has been steadily rising, but he has never personally won a local or national government election.
Philippe's allies hope that his credentials as prime minister during Emmanuel Macron's first term and his extensive political experience will give him a decisive advantage if he qualifies to run against the National Assembly in the 2027 runoff. d.
Bardella's opponents see his lack of executive-level experience as a key weakness in the presidential race, especially as Europe is embroiled in two major international conflicts.
"Edouard Philippe was prime minister during a major crisis like Covid. He has international authority, Loiseau said. You can imagine him going up against Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. That's not necessarily true for anyone who is either an official candidate or would like to be a candidate."