“We are going to throw out this team of broken arms that do nothing for the second city of France!” Almost a year and a half before the municipal elections scheduled for the first half of 2026, the president of the Bouches-du-Rhône and Métropole Aix-Marseille-Provence departmental council, Martine Vassal (various right), is setting the tone: The right-wing campaign to take back Marseille from the outgoing mayor, Benoît Payan (various left), will be brutal.
On Sunday, September 8, in Gardanne, the former candidate Les Républicains (LR), defeated in 2020 by the left-wing Printemps Marseille coalition, gathered her faithful for a “Back to school aioli”. And, above all, to make a demonstration of unity of what defines as “The Republican Right and the Center”At the foot of the platform, an audience made up of elected officials, members of LR or of parties that recently formed the presidential majority. At their side, the president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, Renaud Muselier, a long-time LR member who became regional director of Renaissance. “We can win Marseille. But without unity it is impossible. We have to be tactical”the latter states.
Shocked by the local results of the legislative elections, in which all its elected representatives lost their constituencies to the National Rally (RN) or the New Popular Front, the opposition to the Marseille Spring welcomed Michel Barnier’s arrival in Matignon as a surprise. Especially since the dissolution of the Assembly has probably relegated to oblivion the project to reform the municipal voting system in Paris, Lyon and Marseille (known as the “PLM” law), which it did not want. “The “PLM” law will not change”welcomes Martine Vassal, who recalls that her camp hosts three sectoral town halls (out of eight). “There is no reason why we should not have four by 2026, which would give us back the city”she is already calculating.
Drawing up an apocalyptic balance sheet
Ten days earlier, it was at the Forbin castle in Marseille that the strategy of reconquest was announced. The association A Generation for Marseille organized its first summer universities there. This collective, co-led by the director of Renaud Muselier’s office, Romain Simmarano, and the campaign manager of the resigned Secretary of State Sabrina Agresti-Roubache (Renaissance), Sandra Blanchard, has two objectives. To bring out new faces in a field that, in 2020, suffered from the attachment to the legacy of Jean-Claude Gaudin. And to develop a municipal program for 2026.
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