Marseille: within the lead towards the RN, Payan rejects the “outstretched hand” of LFI | EUROtoday

Towards a duel between left and much proper in Marseille. Four candidates ought to face one another within the second spherical of municipal elections, together with the outgoing left-wing mayor Benoît Payan and the National Rally candidate Franck Allisio, who represent the main duo with respectively 36.7% and 35% of the votes.

The proper and middle candidate Martine Vassal and the LFI deputy Sébastien Delogu are ready to carry their very own, with scores of 12.4% and 11.6%.

Also learnMunicipal 2026: Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse… The outcomes of the primary spherical of elections

The query of attainable alliances or withdrawals with a view to the second spherical is due to this fact important.

“The National Rally is at the gates of power in this city. And that is why I call on the Marseillaises and the Marseillais to gather around the Marseille Spring (its list of left-civil society-ecologists coalition) (…) to show that this city is resisting the brown wave,” launched Benoît Payan shortly after midnight throughout a short intervention.

Franck Allisio, himself from the ranks of the proper and who left the UMP for the RN in 2015, for his half, launched an attraction “to all Marseillaises and all Marseillais. Join us. Let us unite to beat the left and the extreme left.”

The shift to the left of France’s second metropolis, after 25 years of reign of Jean-Claude Gaudin (LR), was one of many shocks of the 2020 municipal elections. Its attainable conquest by the far proper on March 22 can be a bolt from the blue, one yr earlier than the presidential election.

Refusal of an “anti-fascist front”

Sébastien Delogu rapidly reiterated the nationwide place of LFI, calling for “the constitution of an anti-fascist front to prevent the National Rally from conquering Marseille. We are reaching out to all the components of the Marseille Spring and to their candidate Benoît Payan”.

An provide sharply rejected by the outgoing mayor, as he had prompt all through the marketing campaign. “That hand there, it punched me for months and in the evening of sharing the places, it would become an outstretched hand,” he snapped. “Everyone faces their own soul and conscience (…) When you call yourself anti-racist, you have to know how to face your convictions to the end.”

A refusal instantly deemed “irresponsible” by Sébastien Delogu as a result of it “could give the keys to Marseille to the National Rally”. The LFI deputy referred to as on “the people of Marseille to mobilize massively to create the conditions for an anti-fascist front to defeat the National Rally”.

Also learnMunicipal 2026: Marseille’s “living together” put to the check by the rise of the RN

Martine Vassal, whose marketing campaign staff had introduced a press launch, lastly gave up reacting instantly after a rating which guarantees to be one other bitter failure for her. The candidate supported by Renaissance, LR, Horizons and the UDI, already crushed in 2020 and who had been dropping within the polls lately, had throughout the marketing campaign appeared to hesitate for a time over her perspective within the second spherical, earlier than insisting that she would preserve her place and that “Marseille, a multicultural and open city, will never elect an RN mayor”.

The reform of the PLM legislation implies that the listing coming first, above 34%, would win absolutely the majority of seats on the central municipal council.

With AFP