After hearing birdsong during lockdown, French cities vote Green

WHEN HE WON the French presidency in 2017 at the age of 39, Emmanuel Macron triumphed in France’s big cities. In Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg he topped first-round voting, and grabbed over 81% of the run-off vote against the nationalist Marine Le Pen. The former economy minister, who enthused about tech startups and modernising France, was a natural candidate for bike-riding metropolitans. Yet in the second round of municipal elections on June 28th, his party, La République en Marche (LREM), failed to secure a single big French city. Many of them fell instead to the Greens.

In some ways, a setback was to be expected. Mr Macron is unpopular. This was an opportunity for a mid-term protest vote. And the country has suffered over 29,000 deaths linked to covid-19. Partly because of worries about the virus, the abstention rate, at 58%, was a record high. Yet at last year’s European elections the president’s party nonetheless came in a respectable second place. This time, even in Paris, where polls a year ago suggested victory for LREM, its candidate, Agnès Buzyn, trailed in just third place, with 13% of the vote, behind the Republicans’ Rachida Dati. Anne Hidalgo, the sitting Socialist mayor, kept her job, with a solid 49%. Ms Le Pen’s ex-partner, Louis Aliot, meanwhile triumphed in the city of Perpignan.

This dismal...