In a more than strange context, the people of Nice turned out in small numbers to vote in the first round of the Municipal elections.
In fact, abstention was the big winner of this first round with 71%.
The incumbent mayor, Christian Estrosi, was the other winner with 47.63% of the votes.
After Édouard Philippe’s announcement on Saturday evening, the people of Nice shunned the polls, just like the rest of France. A first round of voting that was beyond surreal. Between lockdown instructions and calls to vote.
Ultimately, the incumbent mayor, Christian Estrosi, won 47% of the votes. He is “in pectore” mayor even though the official confirmation will only come in the second round.
Philippe Vardon of the National Rally gathered 16.70%, a barely satisfactory score for this young radical right figure who led a campaign against the “Estrosi system”.
Finally, Jean Marc Governatori, for Nice Écologique, rounds out the podium with 11.3%. Here too, the ecologists did not see a return in the polls matching their expectations. It is true that, riding the green wave, they set the bar very high.
Mireille Damiano of the ViVA list delivered a strong performance with 9%. The Socialist candidate, Patrick Allemand, finished 6th with only 6.57% of the votes, a clear personal failure for someone who, for twenty years, has been a reference figure of the local socialist left, behind Benoît Kandel and his 7.31% who also failed to convince voters he represented the “real” right.
The candidates from these three lists will not be represented in the municipal council, unless they merge with other lists for the second round. At first glance, there do not seem to be the political conditions for such an operation.
Finally, when analyzing these results, one must consider the particular context of this election and weigh it against record abstention. This uncertainty will always remain the true enigma of this day.
Nevertheless, with the coronavirus epidemic and increasingly drastic measures, no one can guarantee the holding of the second round. In which case, this round would become null and void with article L-56 of the electoral law, which stipulates the obligation of a connection between the two rounds.
