Danes head to the polls on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen having called early parliamentary elections after her ruling Social Democrats received a big boost from U.S. President Donald Trump. Frederiksen could have waited until October 2026 to call the vote, but moved early after standing up to Trump’s aggressive threats to annex Greenland earlier this year. Her defiance generated a surge of support for the party just months after it suffered a historic defeat in local elections last October.  But foreign policy won’t carry the day in this election. Voters are focused on domestic issues, while Denmark’s fracturing coalition government — with two other party leaders challenging the prime minister — has turned Tuesday’s vote into a cliffhanger.  WHAT WILL DECIDE THE VOTE?  While Denmark may have come together to resist the pressure from the White House, voters are most concerned about what’s happening at home. Ahead of the vote Danish parties debated a plethora of divisive issues, none of which proved decisive. A poll published by Epinion on Monday suggested almost one in five Danes still didn’t know who they’d vote for.   Everything suggests that Frederiksen’s center-left party, the Social Democrats, will prevail in the vote. Her big talking point has been the revival of a wealth tax that hasn’t been enforced in Denmark for 30 years, and whose reinstatement would thrill left-wing voters. But her main challenger, Deputy Prime Minister Troels Lund Poulsen, leader of the center-right Venstre party, argues the measure will prompt the richest Danes to emigrate, weakening the country’s competitiveness.  Politicians have also debated whether to reinstate the country’s “Great Prayer Day” holiday that Frederiksen’s government abolished in 2024, or to step up efforts to clean polluted drinking water, improve animal welfare, lift the ban on nuclear power, increase defense spending, and tighten migration rules.   RED OR BLUE?  Denmark’s political spectrum has long been divided between a red bloc of left-leaning parties and a blue bloc on the right. In 2022, however, Frederiksen broke with tradition by forming a broad centrist government. The current coalition brings together her Social Democrats with the conservative Venstre party and the liberal Moderates led by former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.  Polls suggest the red and blue blocs are running almost even, with Rasmussen’s Moderates poised to play kingmaker. Support for the red bloc currently translates into 83 seats, while the blue bloc would get 80 — with 90 seats needed for a parliamentary majority. With Frederiksen and Poulsen heading in different directions politically, a repeat of the current coalition government appears unlikely.   That means Rasmussen will likely decide which direction the country goes in if the elections transpire as forecast. Frederiksen has warned that if Rasmussen doesn’t decide to work with her, “then we will, with a very high possibility, get a right-wing government in Denmark.”  Rasmussen has removed himself from contention to become the next prime minister, and has offered instead to mediate the formation of the incoming government. COCAINE-GATE  In the leadup to the vote, the blue bloc’s largest party, the Liberal Alliance, sparked a media frenzy after leader Alex Vanopslagh — a candidate for PM — admitted to using cocaine during his early days as party leader in the mid-2010s. Some 42 percent of Danes said the 34-year-old politician’s drug use had left them less able to see him as the country’s leader.   The parties in the blue bloc have thrown their support behind Venstre’s Poulsen. But with the Liberal Alliance primed to win the most votes on the right, Vanopslagh is insisting the party should be the one to lead if Denmark ends up with a conservative government.  Liberal Alliance leader Alex Vanopslagh arrives for a debate in Copenhagen on Feb. 26, 2026. | Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images At the same time, he says, he won’t stand in Poulsen’s way. “It won’t be me who ends up derailing a right-wing alliance after the election,” Vanopslagh said on Sunday.  GREENLAND IN THE SPOTLIGHT  For all the domestic focus, Greenland still has a key role to play in Denmark’s election — just not the one you might expect. Greenland and Denmark’s other autonomous territory, the Faroe Islands, each hold two seats in the country’s parliament, and those could prove decisive given how tight the race is.   That could prove a major obstacle for a right-leaning government. According to Lasse Lindegaard, Greenland correspondent at public broadcaster DR, those who represent the islands would be highly unlikely “to back a government that includes or relies on support from the [far-right] Danish People’s Party,” whose leader Morten Messerschmidt has dismissed the idea of Greenland’s independence as “immature and absurd.”  Then there’s the Faroe Islands, which will hold their own parliamentary election just two days after Denmark. Politicians in both self-governing territories are questioning whether to scrap the requirement that they send representatives to the Danish parliament.  “We should enter negotiations with Denmark on an equal partnership — and at that point, we would no longer need our seats in the Danish parliament,” said Beinir Johannesen, leader of the Fólkaflokkurin party and a likely contender for prime minister of the Faroe Islands. THE LOGISTICS  Polls in Denmark open at 8 a.m. on Tuesday and close at 8 p.m. The country uses a proportional representation system, meaning the number of seats that parties win is proportional to their share of the national vote. Exit polls will be published shortly after the polls close, but given how close the race is a definitive outcome may not be clear until late Tuesday evening after all votes have been counted, or even early Wednesday morning.   Then comes the hard part: forming a government. With the two sides so closely matched, the process will almost certainly take weeks. Denmark’s next government is certain to be a coalition, but whether it commands majority or minority support in the parliament remains to be seen. The latter scenario has been the norm in Denmark for decades, but often produces weak prime ministers who must constantly seek the support of other parties under the threat of no-confidence motions. 

Party leader Christian Dürr and the executive board of Germany’s pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) resigned on Monday following a pair of crushing election defeats — with Dürr vowing to return. The FDP flopped in two state elections this month in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, failing to clear the 5 percent threshold for representation and being forced to exit both regional parliaments. The party had previously been part of Germany’s federal governing coalition from 2021 to 2024. “Things cannot continue as they are. And today, the FDP federal executive board has taken responsibility for that,” Dürr said at a press conference Monday evening. For all his contrition, Dürr told journalists that he and Secretary-General Nicole Büttner will both run for re-election at a party conference in May, where a new leader will be chosen. “I have already read in some media reports that the FDP leadership and I are giving up. I have no intention of giving up,” Dürr said. At a Monday party meeting Dürr offered to submit to a confidence vote by the party’s executive board, but the board declined. A new 40-member board will also be elected at the May conference. Dürr was elected to the FDP leadership in May 2025, succeeding long-time leader and former federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner. Germany holds five state elections in 2026, with Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania going to the polls in September.

ROME — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is on course to narrowly lose a high-stakes referendum on justice reform Monday, according to a poll released as soon as voting ended at 3 p.m.   According to a survey by Swg carried on the La7 broadcaster, the margins were tight but 49-53 percent of the electorate was expected to vote against Meloni’s proposed reforms, while 47-51 percent were expected to vote in favor. A loss in the referendum would be likely to weaken her hand politically.

The composition of the next Danish government may hinge on a former prime minister with a penchant for brushing his teeth with hand soap. The Social Democrats of incumbent center-left Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen are projected to get the most votes when Danes go to the polls on March 24. But whether they can form a government will likely be decided by Lars Løkke Rasmussen, leader of the centrist Moderate Party. Rasmussen, a former prime minister currently serving as the country’s foreign minister, was the face of Copenhagen’s defiance of threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to annex Greenland earlier this year. At the time, he and Frederiksen seemed like a dynamic duo protecting the Kingdom. But just a day before Tuesday’s elections in Denmark, a right-leaning and a left-leaning bloc are nearly tied with each other in the polls, both just short of a majority in the country’s 179-seat parliament. Rasmussen’s Moderates, meanwhile, are projected to secure 12 seats. That sets him up to either backstop Frederiksen to form another broadly centrist government, or hand power to Deputy PM Troels Lund Poulsen, leader of the center-right Venstre party and the preferred PM candidate of the right-wing bloc. Frederiksen is using that reality to nudge voters towards supporting her. “If [Rasmussen] chooses to back another prime minister, then we will, with a very high possibility, get a right-wing government in Denmark,” she said recently. METTE DOESN’T DEFINE ME For the past four years, Frederiksen’s Social Democrats have governed in coalition with Venstre and Rasmussen’s Moderates — the latter named after a fictional political group in the hit Danish political drama, “Borgen.” The government’s right-leaning policies on migration, which are among the most hardline in Europe, and the lack of action on issues like the housing crisis were cited as key factors in the Social Democrats’ disastrous results in December’s nationwide municipal elections. In the wake of those votes, members of the party’s base called for Frederiksen to recalibrate and prioritize working with left-leaning parties. But the prime minister has kept her options open ahead of March 24, saying she can imagine a repeat partnership with “the political middle” as easily as an alliance with the left. The latter option is firmly opposed by Rasmussen, who wants a repeat of centrist governance. The politician led Venstre during two non-consecutive terms as prime minister from 2009 to 2019, but following an election defeat broke away to found the Moderates as an alternative to Denmark’s historic left-right political offer. Ahead of this week’s vote Rasmussen has ruled out facilitating a left-leaning coalition, saying he won’t partner with the far-left Red-Green Alliance whose support would be needed to make such a government viable. He also insists he’s not aiming to usher the right into power, as Frederiksen claims. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen speaks to journalists ahead of a European Council summit in Brussels, Belgium on March 19, 2026. | Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images “I will not be placed: I stand in the center, firmly, even when the winds blow,” he wrote on Facebook March 19. “The job is to pull together what is otherwise falling apart — because we already have plenty of forces pulling us in different directions.” THE GOAT Rasmussen has been an omnipresent figure in Danish politics for 40 years. In 1986, at 22, he became chairman of Venstre’s youth wing, kickstarting his political career. Since then he’s held multiple cabinet portfolios including finance, health, interior, foreign affairs and prime minister. In recent years he has leaned into his status as a meme on social media, where he is celebrated for his playful demeanor and unabashed chain-smoking. His insouciance and pragmatism — which extends to using hand soap to brush his teeth when toothpaste is unavailable — strikes a chord with Danes, especially amid a tense election. At the same time Poulsen and Frederiksen were dueling it out in a televised debate, Rasmussen uploaded a photo of himself with a goat on Instagram; the caption wished luck to the leaders of Denmark’s two biggest parties. The post referenced the term “greatest of all time” (GOAT) at a moment when his electoral opponents had the spotlight. In the comment section under the entry, users posted goat emojis and echoed the GOAT label. A SHOCK ENDGAME Even though Frederiksen’s Social Democrats are projected to win the most votes, Rasmussen asks why they should get to decide who takes the post of prime minister, per parliamentary tradition. “It’s a bit strange that the Social Democrats have never experienced sitting in government without having the post of prime minister,” he said recently. “I think they should experience that one day.” Despite having already held the crown twice himself, the leader of the Moderates isn’t opposed to becoming prime minister again. Some Danish political analysts say the scenario isn’t impossible. “If the election result is as messy as current polls suggest, and if neither the traditional blue nor red bloc has a majority without the Moderates, could a scenario emerge in which [Rasmussen] would and could go for the prime minister’s job himself?” public channel DR’s political correspondent Christine Cordsen posited. “There is no doubt that if the opportunity arises, he will go for it.” It wouldn’t be without precedent. In 1968 Hilmar Baunsgaard became Danish prime minister despite leading the smallest party in the governing coalition. Although Rasmussen admits he can’t imagine a government “where that would happen,” he also hasn’t rejected the idea of serving a third term as PM. “Rule it out entirely? That would be a strangely weak position to put yourself in when you’re the GOAT, right?”

PARIS — Everyone seems to have something to celebrate after runoffs in municipal elections across France that offer an early glimpse of the trends that will define next year’s presidential election to replace the term-limited Emmanuel Macron. The far-right National Rally made gains in mid-sized and smaller towns in the French heartland. The beleaguered conservative Les Républicains held on to most of the cities it already controlled and even picked up a few new ones. Macron’s Renaissance party now controls Bordeaux and Annecy, its first two big local wins. The center-left Socialist Party kept control of Paris and other large metropolises, while the hard-left France Unbowed picked up several working-class suburbs at the heart of its electoral strategy. Not everyone can be a victor. So here’s our picks of Sunday night’s most prominent winners and losers. WINNERS Emmanuel Grégoire: The soft-spoken 48-year-old catapulted into the ranks of France’s most important politicians after being handily elected mayor of Paris and extending the Socialist Party’s 25-year rule of the capital. He now counts Zohran Mamdani and Sadiq Khan as his peers.  Edouard Philippe’s presidential campaign: Macron’s former prime minister is currently seen in polls as the most likely candidate to advance to the runoff in the race for the Elysée, where he’d likely face off against the front-running National Rally. He had conditioned his bid for the Élysée on winning reelection as mayor of his hometown, Le Havre — a condition that has now been fulfilled. Philippe will hope this victory further boosts his candidacy as his political camp begins to mull what the future will look like after a 10-year Macron presidency. Eric Ciotti: The new far-right mayor of Nice, the unofficial capital of the French Riviera, tried two years ago to strike a deal with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally as the head of the conservative Les Républicains. He locked himself in party headquarters to prevent a coup, but the farcical effort failed and he was booted from the movement. That gamble has paid off, handing him the keys to France’s fifth-largest city. His win is also a partial victory for Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s party, which now has a powerful ally, but Ciotti’s triumph was also the result of a local rivalry. His advocacy for mass privatizations and admiration for Argentina’s chainsaw-wielding libertarian President Javier Milei also doesn’t align with Le Pen’s self-description as being “neither left nor right” and defense of parts of the welfare state. The National Rally: Party President Bardella said the National Rally “achieved the greatest breakthrough in its entire history.” Le Pen said it won dozens of cities. Eric Ciotti salutes his supporters in Nice after the results of the second round of France’s 2026 municipal elections on March 22, 2026. | Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images LOSERS Also the National Rally: There is also reason for the far-right party to worry. The two-round voting system once again seemed to block the National Rally from victory in key targets like Nîmes and Toulon. And after a historic showing in the first round in Marseille, the party’s candidate was handily defeated in the runoff.    Emmanuel Macron: The French president had quietly thrown his weight behind Rachida Dati, his former culture minister, and former football executive Jean-Michel Aulas in Lyon. Dati conceded defeat and Aulas lost by a razor-thin margin, but he has announced a legal challenge of the result. Left-wing alliances: The hard-left France Unbowed and the center-left Socialist Party joined forces in cities across France to defend or capture town halls. But in Toulouse and Limoges — where Socialists backed France Unbowed candidates — as well as Clermont-Ferrand and Brest — where hard-left candidates supported moderates — left-wing alliances lost. The Greens: France’s environmentalists have lost control of several cities they won during the last municipal elections, held amid the Covid-19 pandemic, including the key metropolises of Strasbourg and Bordeaux. They can take some solace for now in a narrow projected win in Lyon, France’s third-largest city, and in the Alpine city of Grenoble — both secured through local alliances with France Unbowed.  François Bayrou: The centrist former prime minister, an iconic figure in French politics, lost in his own city of Pau just months after being ousted by a parliamentary no-confidence vote in September. It could mark the end of his decades-long political career.

PARIS — Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire is on course to become Paris’ next mayor, extending his party’s quarter-century rule of the French capital, according to multiple projections from pollsters. The left-wing candidate is on track to win 53.1  percent of votes in Sunday’s mayoral election runoff, per Ipsos’ initial estimate based on a partial vote count. His conservative adversary Rachida Dati is projected to come in second with 38 percent, while the hard-left candidate Sophia Chikirou is expected to come in third with 8.9 percent.  His supporters in Paris were are celebrating, singing “Emmanuel” and“On a gagné” (we won). After making a speech, he is expected to cycle to Paris city hall. Grégoire finished the first round 12 points clear of Dati, but the runoff was expected to be a tougher challenge after other right-wing candidates coalesced behind Dati’s campaign. Two candidates who qualified for the second round, the center-right former lawmaker Pierre-Yves Bournazel and far-right MEP Sarah Knafo, both left the race to avoid splitting the vote. Grégoire, however, chose not to team up with Chikirou on principle due to her party’s abrasive, confrontational approach to the local election. During the campaign, Grégoire, a protégé-turned-enemy of outgoing Mayor Anne Hidalgo, focused his message on solving the housing shortage and bringing down the cost of living. The 48-year-old had worked in Hidalgo’s administration for a decade in various top roles, including as her main deputy from 2018 until 2024, when he won a seat in the National Assembly. But Grégoire and Hidalgo’s messy falling out forced the candidate to distance himself from his former boss. That meant losing the opportunity to win votes by boasting about the successful Paris Olympics or the transformation of the banks of the Seine into a popular pedestrian area with cafés and restaurants.  The campaign got particularly heated ahead of the runoff, as he and Dati attacked each other with vitriol. Grégoire also accused President Emmanuel Macron of directly interfering to boost Dati, his former culture minister. Macron strongly rejected the assertion. 

BERLIN — Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative party is on course to narrowly win an election in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, according to preliminary results, giving the German leader a much-needed victory. While the victory is welcome for Merz’s party, there will be plenty of concern at the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party more than doubling its vote share to 19.7 percent, according to preliminary results as of 8.30 p.m. The conservative victory comes at the expense of Merz’s federal coalition partners, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which came in second in the small state of around 4 million inhabitants which borders France, Luxembourg and Belgium. The SPD’s defeat at the hands of its coalition partner could plunge the party deeper into crisis nationally and make the government in Berlin far more fractious as the left-wing party seeks to retrench and appeal to what’s left of its socialist base. Preliminary results indicate that Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is set to come in first with 30.9 percent of the vote, taking control of the state premiership from the SPD after 35 years in opposition. Results as of 8.30 p.m. suggest the SPD’s vote share collapsed by around 10 percentage points, to 25.8 percent. “This is historic for us,” Jens Spahn, the CDU’s parliamentary group leader in Berlin, told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday. “It gives us in the CDU a boost at the federal level. But of course, the credit goes above all to our colleagues on the ground,” he added. The CDU’s lead candidate in Rhineland-Palatinate, Gordon Schnieder, pointed to a combative campaign. “We had that will to win; I’ve felt it over the past few months,” Gordon Schnieder said on ARD television. But the biggest winner in terms of vote-share gained is the far-right AfD, which more than doubled its support to 19.8 percent compared with the last state election five years ago when it got 8.3 percent of the vote. The strong showing comes after the AfD’s third-place performance in a state election in Baden-Württemberg earlier this month, illustrating how the party has been able to gain ground outside its eastern strongholds. The outcome in Rhineland-Palatinate is the AfD’s best-ever result in a western German state. The election in Rhineland-Palatinate was the second of five state races to be held this year in what Germans are calling a Superwahljahr — or “super election year” — that is seen as a key test of the national mood as the AfD seeks to overtake Merz’s conservatives in national polls. The AfD is on track to secure big victories in two eastern states in votes set for September, according to polls. “We have achieved record results,” Alice Weidel, one of the AfD’s national leaders, said on Sunday. “Voters appreciate the work we’ve done as opposition party, and we will continue on this path so that we can join the government in the next election,” she added. To do so, the party would need to tear down Germany’s so-called firewall, which has been in place since the end of World War II and has prevented the far right from governing in a coalition with mainstream parties at state and national level. For the struggling SPD, the result was another big setback. The party had the worst performance in a state state election since the end of World War II earlier this month in Baden-Württemberg, coming in at just 5.5 percent. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the party lost almost 10 percentage points compared with its previous result. These poor results are expected to put increasing pressure on the SPD’s national leadership. “I know this result will spark personnel debates,” said Lars Klingbeil, one of the SPD’s national leaders and the country’s finance minister, on national television. “I want us to talk openly about the question: How can we now achieve the best outcome for the Social Democrats?” “We can expect the SPD to now try to assert its own positions more forcefully within this coalition,” said Sabine Kropp, a political science professor at the Free University Berlin. “That will certainly not make governing easier for Friedrich Merz.” The CDU performed well, though, despite growing anxiety about Germany’s economic future as the country’s key manufacturing sectors decline and the fallout from the U.S.-Israel war with Iran mounts. The party improved on its performance compared to the last election in Rhineland-Palatinate, gaining more than 3 percentage points of vote share compared to its 27.7 percent haul last time. Jens Spahn, the CDU’s general secretary, stuck to his party’s key messages on Sunday. “We need growth again in Germany after three years of recession and stagnation,” he said. “That is the defining issue for the nation. It is also the defining issue for the [federal] coalition … We are very aware of that.” The AfD has increasingly been hitting Merz on that theme, with some success. In two states in the former East Germany where elections are set for September, the AfD is so far ahead in polls that its leaders hope to secure an absolute majority in at least one of the contests, a result that would bring the party to real governing power for the first time since its founding in 2013. “While you go on and on about world politics, German industry is collapsing,” Weidel, the AfD leader, told Merz in the Bundestag earlier this week. “The exodus is in full swing.”

Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob’s liberals lead by a narrow margin in Sunday’s national election over former right-wing populist leader Janez Janša, according to exit polls.  The preliminary results show Golob’s governing Freedom Movement party securing 29.9 percent of the vote, good for 30 seats in the country’s 90-seat chamber, ahead of Janša’s conservative Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) on 27.5 percent, equaling 27 seats. If those results hold, it would represent a substantial step back for Golob’s party, which won 41 seats in the last election in 2022. The Slovenian vote has been seen as a mood-check of the bloc’s electorate, with the EU tilting right since the 2024 European Parliament elections gave a boost to right-wing populist parties. A nationalist-populist government took power in the Czech Republic last year, adding to a pro-Moscow bloc that includes Slovakia and Hungary, while the far-right RN leads polling in France ahead of key 2027 presidential elections. If Janša, who has expressed admiration for U.S. President Donald Trump, were to lead the country again, it would give Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán another ally in the European Council. In remarks Sunday night at his party headquarters, Janša said the results show Slovenia has two choices: Either the incumbent liberal-left coalition could continue to govern, or a new right-wing coalition under SDS could take the reins. LIBERALISM VS. ILLIBERALISM Slovenes went to the polls after a dramatic campaign that in its final stretch was less about bread-and-butter issues than allegations of election interference.  Janša, a veteran politician who has served multiple terms as prime minister, campaigned on lower taxes and stronger governance, while Golob sought to frame the election in an interview with POLITICO as a choice between liberal democratic values and Janša’s Hungary-style illiberalism.  Leaked audio and video recordings published earlier this month and apparently designed to tie Golob’s government to corruption showed prominent Slovenian figures, including a former minister, apparently discussing illegal lobbying and the misuse of state funds.   Slovenian authorities said Israeli private intelligence firm Black Cube had carried out illegal surveillance and wiretapping and has visited SDS headquarters in December. Janša acknowledged he had been in contact with a figure linked to the firm, but denied hiring them to dig up dirt on the government.  In a letter sent earlier this week and obtained exclusively by POLITICO, Golob urged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to investigate the alleged election interference, calling it “a clear hybrid threat against the European Union.”  Both parties sought to turn the scandal to their advantage ahead of the vote, with the SDS arguing the recordings were proof of high-level corruption while Golob’s supporters said it was evidence Janša was willing to collaborate with foreign entities to retake power.    The political row spilled over into Brussels, with the European People’s Party group, to which Janša’s party belongs, pushing last week for a European Parliament hearing on fresh allegations that Slovenia’s EU commissioner, Marta Kos — who hails from Golob’s party — had collaborated with Yugoslavia’s secret police decades ago.  Kos has denied the claims, and an official close to her cabinet described the accusations to POLITICO as politically motivated.  The first official results of Sunday’s election will be declared later in the evening.  Ali Walker contributed to this report.

NICE, France — The story of the far right’s probable victory in the French Riviera’s capital will probably be remembered largely because of an incident involving a pig’s head. But the race in Nice is also set to have broader implications ahead of France’s presidential election in 2027, reviving debate over whether the country’s weakened, traditional conservatives could ultimately merge forces with the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. A candidate allied with the anti-immigration National Rally is on track to become mayor of France’s fifth most populous city, famed for its sweeping, palm-lined Mediterranean beachfront. Eric Ciotti, 60, led the first round with 43.4 percent of the vote. The incumbent mayor, Christian Estrosi, a former industry minister under former right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy, scored just over 30 percent and now faces a battle to claw his way back in Sunday’s runoff. “The people of Nice have expressed a desire to turn the page … The time for change has come,” a triumphant Ciotti said after the first-round vote. His lead was fueled by local rivalries, scandal and a feud with Estrosi that stretches back decades. The campaign took an ugly turn when a pig’s head, alongside a printed slur and a Star of David, was tied to the gate of Estrosi’s home — seen as a particularly gratuitous attack since his wife is Jewish. The case has now become even murkier. Estrosi initially blamed political opponents, but investigators are now exploring whether people within his own camp may have orchestrated the crime, the prosecutor said this month. Two arrests were made. Estrosi says he is the victim of “manipulation” and that he is awaiting the outcome of the investigation. Prosecutor Damien Martinelli said there was, so far, “no evidence” implicating anyone beyond those already identified, adding that Estrosi and his wife would be questioned as witnesses. TWO RIGHTS If Ciotti wins, the victory will ripple across the whole of France, well beyond the pebble beaches of the Côte d’Azur. It’s not just a story about a big city turning to an ally of Le Pen, but also one about whether the traditional conservative camp — the party of Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac — could ultimately team up with the far right. For now, Bruno Retailleau, head of France’s main conservative party Les Républicains, has not gone that far, but his response to the bitter clash in Nice has reignited debate about whether there will ultimately be a “union of the rights” — an alliance between conservatives and nationalists. Earlier this week, he refused to endorse Estrosi for the runoff, despite the current mayor being officially backed by his party. Instead he took a “neither-nor” approach, calling on voters to follow their conscience in what he called a “harmful” campaign. What he conspicuously did not do — as earlier conservatives did — is call for Les Républicains’ voters to shun the far right. Indeed, Ciotti thanked Retailleau for his stance and hailed him as a “man of character” for not endorsing Estrosi. FRIENDS TO RIVALS Ciotti hails from Les Républicains and led the party from 2022 to 2024, before veering to the far right. He was ousted from the party leadership in a farcical coup after he proposed cooperating with Le Pen’s far right amid the snap parliamentary election of 2024. He was ultimately toppled after locking himself in party headquarters, forcing another senior party official to go and find a spare key. He now heads a micro-party, the Union of the Right for the Republic, and has secured National Rally backing on the riviera. The rivalry with Estrosi didn’t start with this campaign. Estrosi hired Ciotti as a parliamentary assistant after being elected to the French lower house in 1988, and the pair went on to work in tandem until falling out in 2017, shortly after Macron’s first election win. Estrosi quickly moved toward supporting the centrist president; while Ciotti remained a staunch opponent. Estrosi, a former professional motorcycle racer, trailed Ciotti by about 15,000 votes in the first round. He is betting that he could be bailed out by the 25,000 voters who backed left-wing candidates in the first round, as well as on the roughly 100,000 who abstained, disproportionately living in poorer neighborhoods. PRESSING THE FLESH Little wonder then that Estrosi on Wednesday afternoon was walking round a working-class district near the central train station, shaking hands and taking selfies, many with residents of North African descent despite having always called for a crackdown on immigration. The next day, he stood alongside left-leaning city councillors, pledging to speed up the city’s green transition and warning of the perils of the far right. “We can’t afford not to commit ourselves to blocking the path of what could spell disaster for a city like ours,” he said in reference to a Ciotti win. There’s certainly a good measure of opportunism here, because based on past remarks and despite recent alliances, Estrosi is hardly a moderate. Juliette Chesnel-Le Roux, the Green candidate, highlighted his track record at a press conference on Thursday: He opposed same-sex marriage — describing it as a “distraction worthy of a Las Vegas show” in 2012 — warned in 2015 of an “Islamist fifth column” in France, and claimed in 2023 that images from Gaza of mothers carrying dead infants were staged. Chesnel-Le Roux made the runoff by garnering more than 10 percent of the vote. While left-wing candidates typically withdraw to block the far right in cases where they are unable to win — as happened in nearby Marseille — she has refused to do so. For her, Estrosi and Ciotti are two sides of the same coin, and she worries that pulling out would leave the city without any opposition. On her campaign poster, she calls for a rejection of both camps with a stark “ni l’un, ni l’autre” — neither one nor the other. It is illustrated with fingers pointing at the two other candidates’ posters. “The people of Nice know that it was Estrosi who launched Ciotti,” she said. “If we pull out, who becomes the opposition? … Members of Estrosi’s group will be strongly tempted to join Ciotti.” Campaign posters in Nice. | Victor Goury-Laffont/POLITICO WHICH MODEL FOR THE RIGHT? That view is echoed by Jean-Marc Governatori, the Green candidate in the last municipal election who is now backing Ciotti after being promised a role in the future local administration. “Ninety percent of those elected on Estrosi’s list will come over to our side,” he said at a café near City Hall. “Estrosi has a tremendous capacity to rally people against him.” That may be what pushed Les Républicains’ Retailleau to ditch the current mayor in the campaign’s final stretch. A close ally, who was granted anonymity to discuss party business, said younger officials had been complaining for weeks about “the direction” of Estrosi’s campaign due to its increased overtures to the left. A Ciotti victory would force not only conservatives but also the far right to clarify their path — particularly on core economic policy. Ciotti is a fiscal hawk who wants mass privatizations and admires Argentina’s chainsaw-wielding, libertarian President Javier Milei. His strategy is to win over wealthy and business voters who once backed the traditional right. Le Pen, by contrast, describes herself as being “neither left nor right,” defends parts of the welfare state and targets less affluent voters in deindustrialized regions. But her legal troubles could bar her from running in 2027. If 30-year-old Bardella replaces her — an increasingly likely scenario — he may have to choose between those two models, and decide where the probable next mayor from Nice fits in his plans for France. Sarah Paillou contributed to this report.

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.