French election: How to watch the runoffs like a pro

PARIS — French voters head to the polls again Sunday for local runoff elections that will show which direction the wind is blowing ahead of next year’s race to replace President Emmanuel Macron.

The contests are going to be tight. Many candidates who qualified for round two by scoring more than 10 percent of the vote withdrew or formed strategic alliances to give their ideological allies the best chance to win.

It’s going to be spicy, but also complicated. If you want to know which cities are driven by just local issues and which ones reflect national trends like the rise of populism, read on.

Here is what you need to know to follow along like a pro.

Where should I be watching?

You can ignore the more than 30,000 municipalities that were expected to choose a mayor in a single round and start with Paris.

The race to lead the French capital will be a duel between Socialist Party candidate Emmanuel Grégoire and Rachida Dati of the conservative party Les Républicains.

Grégoire, a protégé-turned-enemy of outgoing Mayor Anne Hidalgo, topped the first round, getting nearly 38 percent of the vote last week, well ahead of Dati’s 25 percent.

But Dati managed to strike a deal with another candidate who qualified, Pierre-Yves Bournazel from the center-right Horizons. Far-right MEP Sarah Knafo, who also qualified, decided to drop out to avoid siphoning votes from Dati and is doing her utmost to ensure a candidate on the political right wins.

Gr´egoire, meanwhile, chose on principle not to work with the third-place finisher, Sophia Chikirou, and her hard-left party France Unbowed. That decision could prove costly.

For indicators if Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s far-right National Rally can achieve the breakthrough they’ve long sought, look to the south of France.

Their ally Eric Ciotti scored 43.43 percent of the vote in Nice, the fifth-most populous city in the country, and looks primed to become the most powerful far-right mayor in France.

Le Pen’s close friend Laure Lavalette came in first with 42 percent in the first round of the race to lead Toulon. But the runoff in the Mediterranean city, which is home to the French navy, will be a tough three-way race.

And while the National Rally turned in a historic first-round performance in Marseille, the odds are stacked against it winning given the hard-left candidate who qualified for the runoff bowed out. His voters will likely flock to Mayor Benoît Payan, the center-left politician who won the first round against the National Rally’s Franck Allisio by a thin margin.

The other major story that emerged after Sunday’s vote was the better-than-expected performance by France Unbowed, which forced the more moderate Socialist Party to team up with it despite the hard-left party’s recent controversies.

Toulouse, home to European aerospace giant Airbus and France’s fourth-biggest city, could end up in the hands of France Unbowed after its candidate François Piquemal joined forces with his Socialist Party rival to oust incumbent Jean-Luc Moudenc.

France Unbowed and the Socialist Party are also teaming up in Nantes, Brest and Clermont-Ferrand.

While these alliances could lead to victories, their critics say they’re short-sighted and offer France Unbowed’s firebrand leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon the opportunity to build political momentum ahead of next year’s presidential election.

How it will play out

There’s a limit to what can be said before the vote. From Saturday, candidates won’t be allowed to campaign and the media won’t be able to report on polls until after the vote.

Voting begins at 8 a.m. on Sunday. Polls close as early as 6 p.m. in smaller cities and as late as 8 p.m. in bigger ones like Paris and Marseille.

Once the vote is over, the campaign restrictions and media blackout lifts, and pollsters will immediately release their first estimates. These aren’t exit polls like you’d see in the United States, but an analysis of early voting results that are typically representative enough to give a sense of how a city voted.

France’s interior ministry will gradually release official results during the night and until Monday morning. Results in cities that have adopted voting machines will come quicker.

Ça va sans dire, the best place to follow the vote is POLITICO’s live blog, which will be back from Sunday.

It’s not only about mayors

Wannabe mayors are running alongside a host of candidates trying to get a seat in city councils.

Seats are distributed proportionally to each list based on their vote share, except for the winning list which, in most towns, automatically gets a majority. Things work differently in France’s three biggest cities, Paris, Marseille and Lyon, where the winning list is only guaranteed a quarter of the seats.

City councils also indirectly have a say on national politics as they represent a key chunk of the electoral college, made up of around 162,000 officials, which elects French senators.

Half the seats in the senate are contested every three years, with the next vote happening in September.

So far, the National Rally and the France Unbowed had little representation in the senate given their historical weakness at the local level. But that’s another thing that could change after Sunday’s vote.