Socialist Paris Mayor beats Macron's candidate in election 1st round


Reuters | Paris | Updated: 16-03-2020 04:12 IST | Created: 16-03-2020 03:01 IST
Socialist Paris Mayor beats Macron's candidate in election 1st round
Representative Image Image Credit: Twitter (@Anne_Hidalgo)
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  • France

Incumbent Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo beat President Emmanuel Macron's candidate into a distant third place in the first round of local elections in the French capital on Sunday, an IPSOS exit poll showed.

With 30%, Hidalgo, a Socialist, was comfortably ahead of conservative rival Rachida Dati's 22% and 17.7% garnered by Macron's official candidate, former health minister Agnes Buzyn. A dissident from Macron's party, Cedric Villani, won 8%. In Paris, mayoral elections follow a complicated two-round system in seventeen districts, which each elect a certain number of delegates, similar to the U.S. presidential election.

Lists of candidates above 5 percent can merge ahead of the runoff, making final results hard to predict. But the results of the first round, which may be canceled if the second round cannot go ahead because of the coronavirus outbreak, are a blow to Macron, especially when compared to the 33% his party, En Marche, won in Paris in European elections last year.

Macron's plan to conquer Paris City Hall had become near impossible after Villani, one of his lawmakers who was eventually kicked out, decided to defy the president and challenge the ruling party's official candidate. Losing Paris would be a blow to Macron's plan to build a local power base for his party and make inroads into the last bastion of the old establishment dominated by socialists or conservatives.

However, it wasn't bad all around for Macron, as two of his ministers, Gerald Darmanin and Franck Riester, won the city halls of Tourcoing in the north and Coulommiers near Paris straight from the first round, with over 50 percent of the vote.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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