2026 municipal elections: the strange strategy of rebellious France which intends to appear alone

Why declare a war for such low chances of victory? This is the question that can be asked by observing the rebels prepare the municipal elections alone. While at the national level, the relatives of Jean-Luc Mélenchon still seem to want to defend the new Popular Front (NFP), they have completely ceased the dialogue with their socialist partners for 2026.

This Sunday, an election will have the value of an example: the deputy Louis Boyard presents himself in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, in the Parisian suburbs, on the occasion of a partial municipal. He will have a communist candidate supported by the socialists and the Greens in front of him, which makes the possibilities of victory very thin but whatever.

Mandolin

In Toulouse, Montpellier, Marseille, Paris and in number of less important cities, LFI candidates intend to present themselves alone or in partnership with the Greens. “You believe that we will wait under the Socialist window by playing the mandolin? Let us do it with Benoît Payan, who treats us so bad in Marseille? So we are preparing” ourselves “thus justified Jean-Luc Mélenchon on France 3.

But for the moment only David Guiraud in Roubaix seems to have a chance to win.

The LFist strategy is not a conquest strategy. When his elected officials position themselves in Marseille like Sébastien Delogu or in Paris like Sophia Chikirou, it is not in the hope of winning these cities but rather of breaking the momentum of the socialists who hold them.

LFI's post-electoral account is already written, it will be a question of explaining that the Socialist Party belongs to the past, that voters no longer want it even in its former bastions, and that the future is in the rebellious. The leadership on the left is at stake.
This radical bias also aims to clarify the line of the rebellious a little more.

Where, during the last municipal and legislative, he had agreed to have an alliance with the other left forces, Jean-Luc Mélenchon this time wishes to act the rupture with the PS in order to show that his party embodies an ideologically pure left which now refuses to dissolve in social democracy.

Seduce abstainers

This act of independence could also attract new voters that are not inclined to vote for traditional parties. It is towards the suburbs that the gaze of the ex-candidate at the presidential election Mélenchon is headed for some market share among the abstentionists.

Finally, this strategy has the merit of making the LFI brand visible at the local level where it often disappeared at the end of the second round. Paris, Marseille, Montpellier are considered to be socialist cities while they were carried away thanks to the support of the rebellious.

Finally, icing on the cake, the rebellious also hope to win some municipal councilors in order to count great voters allowing them to enter the Senate.

In short, the municipal elections of 2026 will not make LFI a party of mayors but this disunity of the left could make happiness … from the right. In Paris, Rachida Dati is delighted.