I
n the wake of France's municipal elections, the conservative Les Républicains (LR) party's leadership is unlikely to thank the far-right Rassemblement National (RN). But it could, at the very least, thank its voters, as it was likely thanks to the RN electorate that LR secured three of its most significant victories, in Brest, Clermont-Ferrand and Limoges. Even though LR candidates faced competition from the far right in the second round in these three races, that did not prevent the right from defeating the left in a three-way contest, due to significant vote transfers from RN to LR candidates between the two rounds.
Two-thirds of the far right's first-round voters in Brest and Clermont-Ferrand, one-third in Limoges, and half in Tulle, Gap and Istres defected in the run-off to help the mainstream right win. RN leader Jordan Bardella even set the example by expressing his support for right-wing candidate Rachida Dati in the Paris mayoral election, despite her dual status as President Emmanuel Macron's protégé and a defendant in a corruption case, agaisnt left-wing candidate Emmanuel Grégoire.
Given the configurations in many races after the first round, in which the right very often finished ahead of the RN, this tactical voting phenomenon usually only operated in one direction. Yet some exceptions did exist, revealing right-wing voters' growing temptation to vote RN. In the second round, some right-wing candidates saw vote transfers away from them when the RN seemed better positioned to defeat the left. This was the case in Nîmes, Saint-Etienne and Martigues – though the left won in all three elections. The far right has now found new reserves of voters beyond winning over abstainers.
