Paris (France) (AFP) - Voters cast their ballots for mayors in major French cities on Sunday, with the left battling to keep Paris while the far right eyes gains ahead of next year’s presidential election.

Most of the country’s almost 35,000 villages, towns and boroughs elected their leaders in a first round last weekend, but the races went to run-offs in about 1,500 communes, including bigger urban centres.

The local ballots are being closely watched to gauge the mood on the ground and potential party alliances before the election of a successor to centrist President Emmanuel Macron next year, with the far right scenting its best chance yet at seizing power.

Patrice Laurent, 77, was among those voting Sunday morning in Paris, a capital of some two million inhabitants that has been under leftist leadership for the past 25 years.

“I don’t want the city to go back to the right,” he said outside a school turned polling station in a northeastern neighbourhood.

The race is tight between leftist Emmanuel Gregoire – a former deputy of outgoing Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo – and his runner-up, right-wing ex-minister Rachida Dati.

The former justice and culture minister, a mentee of now convicted ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, hopes to seize Paris for the right and become its second woman mayor in a row.

- ‘Heartfelt choice’ -

Dati, who faces trial in September on corruption charges she denies, has boosted her chances after a centre-right candidate and a far-right hopeful dropped out.

But Gregoire had refused a helping hand from a hard-left contender who has remained in the race, splitting the leftist vote.

Leftists and centrists have allied in recent elections against the far right, but the left has been fractured since the fatal beating last month of a far-right activist blamed on fringe leftists.

Agnes Kaveh, a 41-year-old cybersecurity consultant, would not say who she chose as Paris mayor.

But she said she believed it should be “a heartfelt choice, based on what we enjoy in our everyday lives and what we believe is good for others”.

In other parts of France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party is hoping for better scores than in previous local polls.

The RN claims that it and its allies were re-elected last Sunday in 10 communes, including the southern city of Perpignan of 120,000 inhabitants – the largest in France to be run by the far-right party.

They also say they have won for the first time in 14 other districts.

- New city for the far right? -

But the anti-immigration RN is also hoping to be elected in larger areas.

Its candidate won by far the most votes in Toulon, a southern city of 180,000 residents. If captured in the run-off, it would be the largest under RN control to date.

In the southern city of Marseille, France’s second-largest, RN hopeful Franck Allisio came second last week, a single percentage point behind incumbent left-wing mayor Benoit Payan.

But the left looks likely to stay in charge, after a hard-left candidate stepped down.

In the northern port city of Le Havre, declared presidential candidate Edouard Philippe is well-placed to remain mayor.

Philippe, a centrist who as prime minister helped steer France through the start of the Covid pandemic, is seen as one of the strongest opponents to the RN’s potential presidential pick – whether three-time candidate Le Pen, 57, or her 30-year-old lieutenant Jordan Bardella.

As of noon (1100 GMT), turnout stood at around 20.3 percent, a nearly one-point increase on the first round’s score at the same time.

Overall turnout for last week’s vote was 57 percent – the country’s lowest in local polls bar the Covid pandemic-affected last edition in 2020.

Results are expected to start trickling in during the evening.

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