Macron sets sights on France's town halls for power base

After dynamiting France’s mainstream parties, President Emmanuel Macron is turning his mind to re-election and the need to make inroads in the last bastion of the old establishment: 35,000 town halls.

Municipal elections are still eight months away, but Macron is already plotting a course to conquer cities big and small. His ruling party on Wednesday picked former government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux to be its candidate for Paris.

Conquering cities such as Marseille, Lyon or Bordeaux is crucial to building a local power base for his party, La Republique En Marche (LREM), which he created with a handful of aides in 2016 as a vehicle for his presidential campaign.

Back then, he promised a grassroots movement that would revolutionize France’s highly centralized political structure. But his failure to connect with ordinary people is one reason he was caught badly off-guard by the anti-government yellow-vest protests that began in October.

“It’ll be essential for him to have a good showing,” said Claude Dargent, researcher at Sciences-Po university in Paris. “It’ll be an opportunity to win local bastions, because that’s also how you win a presidential election.”

Mayors, whether of small rural communes or large cities, are influential in local politics and, as the deliverers of policing, transport or planning services, are often citizens’ main point of contact with the state.