[IsraelTimes] Closely watched municipal elections seen as test of popular support for mainstream parties ahead of 2027 presidential vote; Socialist Party wins key races in Paris and Marseille
La Belle France’s far-right National Rally (RN) failed to win control of any major city in Sunday’s nationwide municipal election, a setback that gave hope to embattled mainstream parties ahead of next year’s presidential election.
Marine Le Pen’s nationalist eurosceptic party lost out in big target cities including Marseille and Toulon, although an ally, Eric Ciotti, who heads his own staunchly conservative UDR party, won in Nice, La Belle France’s fifth-largest city.
The municipal votes were a test of both the depth of the far right’s support base a year ahead of presidential elections to replace centrist Emmanuel Macron, and the resilience of mainstream parties in a fragmented political landscape.
Opinion polls project both Le Pen and her young protege Jordan Bardella will perform strongly in the 2027 race. Le Pen is awaiting a ruling in her appeal against an embezzlement conviction before deciding whether she will run for a fourth time.
The 35,000 separate municipal ballots typically focus on local issues and their outcome does not offer a neat forecast of who will succeed Macron.
But they show trends in popularity and in the type of alliances that can be struck in an increasingly fragmented political landscape, and senior politicians from all parties were quick to claim Sunday’s outcome was good news for them.
In Gay Paree, Socialist Party candidate Emmanuel Gregoire fended off a challenge from conservative former minister Rachida Dati and ensured the French capital remains in left-wing hands.
NEXT STEP: THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Senior RN officials rejected suggestions that the party’s defeat in Toulon showed it had hit a "glass ceiling" ahead of the presidential election, saying it had won dozens of local constituencies where it previously had had no presence.
"The National Rally and its candidates have achieved tonight, in this municipal election, the biggest breakthrough in its entire history," RN chief Bardella said.
His anti-immigration party held onto the southern city of Perpignan and won in other towns such as Menton and Carcassonne, also in the south.
But the RN’s failure to win larger cities, and in particular in Marseille, its most coveted prize, may show limits to its growing popularity.
Meanwhile,
...back at the precinct house, Don Calamari's lawyer was getting even redder in the face... with wins in Gay Paree and Marseille, the Socialist Party, long weakened nationally, saw reasons for hope.
"Gay Paree will be the heart of the resistance" to any union of the mainstream right and far-right, Socialist winner Gregoire said after he crossed Gay Paree on a bicycle — a nod to the left’s green policies in the French capital.
Senior politicians on the mainstream right said the municipal elections showed they needed to be united to win — especially in next year’s presidential election.
Former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe was re-elected mayor in his port city of Le Havre, in a boost to his hopes of running for president in 2027.
Philippe, a center-right politician who served as prime minister under the centrist Macron, said "there were reasons to be hopeful" in the values of La Belle France and that the extremes can be beaten.
MARSEILLE, PARIS
In the second-biggest city, Marseille, the incumbent, Socialist Mayor Benoit Payan, was re-elected with 54% of the votes. He had been neck-and-neck with the RN in the first round, and received a boost when his hard-left rival pulled out of the run-off to prevent a far-right victory.
"This city, which some believed lost, showed its most beautiful face, showed that it was capable of resisting," said Payan.
The Socialist Party said it had also beaten Francois Bayrou, a center-right former prime minister of Macron’s, in the city of Pau.
The hard-left La Belle France Unbowed (LFI) won in the northern city of Roubaix, a city of nearly 100,000, and in the Saint-Denis suburb of Gay Paree. The party put forward its highest number of candidates in local elections.
"Traditional parties are losing ground," Manuel Bompard, of LFI, said.
#3
^^^ True dat, B. It still sickens me that France is on the UN Security Council as a permanent member. Why not Brazil then, too (or instead)? They were on the winning side.
"La Belle France’s far-right National Rally (RN) failed to win control of any major city"
Name me five major cities in North America or Europe/UK that are NOT run by the left.
[NY Post] Guess who's not afraid of Dems retaking Congress
Delta Air Lines is punishing Congress for failing to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
The airline company has temporarily yanked its special congressional desk service to lawmakers and staffers on Capitol Hill until Congress finally funds the DHS, which has been in a partial shutdown since Feb. 28.
"Due to the impact on resources from the longstanding government shutdown, Delta will temporarily suspend specialty services to members of Congress flying Delta," the company said in a statement first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constipation Constitution.
"Next to safety, Delta’s No. 1 priority is taking care of our people and customers, which has become increasingly difficult in the current environment."
Last week, Delta CEO Ed Bastian delivered a fierce rebuke of Congress for allowing funding for DHS to lapse, which has resulted in Transportation Security Administration employees going without full pay for over a month.
Bastian called the situation "inexcusable" and railed against lawmakers for using TSA workers as "political chips."
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/24/2026 11:21 ||
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Link ||
[1770 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
specialty services to members of Congress
This like being at disneyland+ and using a handicapped kid to skip the line?
[JOHNKASSNEWS] The highly rated retired common-sense Cook County judge had something bothering him, something heavy on his mind, about the way the law was being used as a political cudgel, to beat the opposition senseless.
He thought this trend of attacking one’s political opponents under the color of law was hurting the republic and threatened to tear it apart.
And so, he shared what was on his mind publicly right here at your favorite website for common sense, JohnKassNews.com. His column led off with a photograph of my choosing, that of snarling billionaire, George Soros who used some of his vast fortune to elect leftist pro-criminal prosecutors in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York and other big cities. Law enforcement was demoralized and anarchy and lawlessness reigned.
He had retired honorably from the bench and answered the call of senior judges to return to the bench and help reduce a vast backlog of cases. And his essay written for me was compelling to those who didn’t like the modern American trend of lawfare, which is about using the courts to beat your political opponents into a puddle of goo under the color of law.
The judge’s essay at JohnKassNews were compelling enough to draw interest from the editors of Real Clear Politics. And they picked up his essay and ran it on their website, too. So millions more saw it and read it and discussed it on X and other social media.
The judge, by the name of James Brown, thought he was in the United States of America where citizens were free to speak their minds under the First Amendment to the Constitution. And so he wrote his column titled "His Judgement Cometh and That Right Soon."
But Judge Brown was wrong. He was not in just anyplace where people could speak their minds without fear of punishment. And he was not in old Russia.
Judge Brown was in Illinois, a one-party Democrat machine state that allows dissent only as long as it comes from the left, a place where conservative Republicans are rhetorically skewered and mocked by the political class and even by their dogs in the media. Even the once-proud and formerly Chicago Tribune has joined the state machine Democrats in attacking Republican conservatives, apparently driving what remains of them beyond the Illinois borders.
The political infrastructure of Democrat Illinois—from the government employee unions to the bar associations are loyal to the machine that controls almost everything.
The state was once run by Mayor Richard J. Daley.The leaders of the Illinois machine are now Gov. JB Pritzker, the hotel trust fund baby who resembles a middle aged Agustus Gloop on Ozempic, and Cook County Democrat Party chair Toni Preckwinkle, elected even though voters are under constant attack by repeat violent criminal offenders like that felon arrested 70 times who burned a young woman alive on the CTA. Police heard him scream "Burn bitch!"
Was it Pritzker or Preckwinkle or one of their agents whispering into the ears of the Illinois Supreme Court? I don’t know. I can’t say. I’ve been around this political game in Illinois and one thing is clear: Your opponents always come at you from the side.
The Cook County Bar Association and the liberal Chicago Council of Lawyers complained. The Illinois Supreme Court humiliated Judge Brown by recalling his appointment.
He spoke to other reporters, including one of the fairest and most impartial, Tim Hecke of CWB Chicago. Heck wrote:
"A retired Cook County judge who was recalled to the bench late last year to help manage the county’s crushing caseload backlog, only to be dumped by the state Supreme Court six weeks later over an opinion column he wrote as a private citizen, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the high court’s justices, alleging his removal was unconstitutional retaliation for protected speech.
"James R. Brown, who served on the Cook County Circuit Court for 18 years before retiring in 2020, answered the Supreme Court’s call for experienced judges to temporarily return to the bench and was one of seven retired judges to make the cut. The assignment was supposed to run almost a full year, through December 7, 2026, with Brown tackling the high-volume Traffic Court call.
"I wanted to help. I really wanted to help. I feel like I had a lot to add," Brown said Thursday. "I feel like I’m still in my prime."
"He stepped back on the bench on December 15, 2025, and no complaints about his conduct or impartiality were filed during his tenure, according to the lawsuit.
But in late December, the Chicago Council of Lawyers, which describes itself as "not a traditional bar association," and the Cook County Bar Association, the nation’s oldest bar association of Black lawyers and judges, caught wind of a column Brown wrote for former Tribune columnist John Kass’s website before he asked to be considered for reinstatement. Storm clouds quickly formed.
In petitioning the high court for Brown’s removal, the Cook County Bar Association objected to multiple passages from the column, titled "His Judgement Cometh and That Right Soon," including assertions that "justice awaits those who brazenly and viciously demonized the 77 million Trump supporters" and that "accountability, in one form or another, is coming to the George Soros-funded progressive prosecutors who waged lawfare against President Trump."
The bar associations objected to his politics, that he would dare take the side of President Trump against Soros prosecutors. It was all politics. It was all spite without honor.
The other day Judge Brown and his legal counsel from the Liberty Justice Center appeared on the Chicago Way podcast to discuss the case. I leave the link here if you’d like to listen.
On the Chicago Way podcast, Judge Brown spoke of the personal hurt and damage to his reputation.
"If they were calling into question my my impartiality, which has never been called into question. I’ve received all great fire ratings throughout my career. I was considered fair and partial, good legal ability, good demeanor. And they questioned that and I was devastated. I mean, the worst thing that you can take with judge is they’re corrupt or they’re unfair. And personally, I wouldn’t want to be a judge if I couldn’t be fair to people. That’s what it’s all about. You judge the law and you judge the facts of the case and you adhere to your oath. And you never ever bring politics into the equation,
Brendan Philbin is Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center:
"We were really taken aback for reasons both to how it happened to Judge Brown, in the state of Illinois, there’s a process in the Illinois legislature or you’re removed through the Illinois Courts Commission. And in that courts Commission, like in an impeachment, you have a hearing and an opportunity to be heard, but in Judge Brown’s case, the Supreme Court just happened, you know, laterally and gave him no process, no notice and just issued an order that said his appointment to the bench was vacated. So and then the why? Of course, they didn’t like what he said. They didn’t like the content of what he said. And it didn’t appear to be an issue before the Cook County Bar Association, they said, because, John, you just mentioned that his column was picked up by RealClearPolitics, a national news organization."
They did more than that. The bar associations left their fingerprints all over the Constitution as they mutilated the sacred document.
"There’s also a problem that applies to Judge Brown specifically here, but also to all the other judges that are out there in Illinois. And that’s why we asked for a declaratory, judgment saying applying the Illinois Code of Judicial Ethics to retired judges. There’s a unconstitutional restraint on free speech. So we’ve had a lawsuit in federal court Northern District of Illinois against each individual Illinois Supreme Court Justices. We’ve asked them both. We’re seeking a preliminary injunction point back to mention county for the remainder of his one year term. We’ve also asked for damages for the financial hardship that this has caused drought and we’re also asking for that declaratory judgment too from the federal court. That says the Illinois Supreme Court acted unconstitutionally and we’re asking for that relief based on the the three foundations. I said earlier that how the most Supreme Court squarely circumvented the established due process".
Of course they did. Lawfare is mother’s milk to the Democrats of Illinois. Just days ago Gov. J.B. Pritzker threatened those who had worked in the Trump administration with civil if not outright criminal punishment.
How does this happen in America?
It happens when there is only one political party. And in Illinois it is ruled by the Democrats. Hush your mouth if you know what’s good for you. Shush. This is your last warning.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/24/2026 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[1827 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
Soros judges and DAs go a low as small cities, but they also go as high as states and into DC. Our judicial system has become Mirkwood.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/24/2026 6:32 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
