PARIS • France's Greens party yesterday urged President Emmanuel Macron to prioritise the environment as it savoured big wins in municipal elections, seen by many as a rebuke of the centrist leader's top-down governing style during his first three years in office.
Mr Yannick Jadot, head of Europe Ecology - The Greens (EELV), said the results proved that Mr Macron had been "in denial" over growing public demand for ambitious measures to fight climate change.
Mr Jadot told Europe 1 radio the EELV would not join Mr Macron's government as part of a widely expected Cabinet shake-up, saying instead the President should enact "as he promised" 149 measures proposed this month by the Citizens' Convention on Climate.
Voters handed the Greens control of key cities including Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg, while Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo of the Socialist Party was re-elected after forming an alliance with the EELV.
Traditional right-wing and socialist parties did respectably well, with the right-wing Republicans winning in more than half of the cities with over 9,000 residents.
But Mr Macron's Republic on the Move (LREM) was roundly rejected, with only five of 10 ministers in his government securing wins in the cities they contested.
They included his Prime Minister Edouard Philippe - even though he is not a card-carrying LREM member - who was elected mayor of the Atlantic port city of Le Havre, heightening speculation he could leave the government and give Mr Macron the possibility of naming a more left-leaning premier.
The polls took place amid the coronavirus pandemic with voters required to wear face masks and turnout hitting a record low of 40 per cent, the BBC reported.
At polling stations, voters were advised to stand at least 1m apart from one another, Euronews channel reported, and to use their own pens to mark the ballot papers.
The delayed second round of local polls came more than three months after the March 15 first round, held two days before France's coronavirus lockdown.
Government spokesman Sibeth Ndiaye expressed "disappointment" late on Sunday over the LREM's poor showing, which analysts attributed to Mr Macron's failure to build the party into a viable force at the local level. "There are places... where our own internal divisions brought us to results that were extremely disappointing," Ms Ndiaye told French television.
In Paris, LREM candidate Agnes Buzyn, a former health minister, was hobbled by a dissident LREM candidate, star mathematician Cedric Villani.
Ms Hidalgo, who has vowed to limit the use of cars in the French capital, thanked voters for choosing "a Paris that breathes, a Paris that is more agreeable to live in".
Meanwhile, Ms Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally claimed a big victory in Perpignan in the south, giving it control of a city with more than 100,000 inhabitants for the first time since 1995.
Only 40 per cent of the country's 16.5 million eligible voters cast ballots, a record-low turnout reflecting disapproval of Mr Macron, as well as coronavirus fears.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
