Everything you need to know about the French municipal elections

The French municipal elections will take place this March, with the first round scheduled for 15th March and the second round on 22nd March. This means that around 35,000 mayors will take office in the weeks following the elections, to serve across France’s 34,875 communes (the number of communes in France as of 1st January 2025).

Communes, arrondissements, councils, departments; before we get to the heart of municipal elections, let’s break down the administrative divisions in France.

France is made up of 18 administrative regions (of which 13 are on the mainland and 5 are overseas territories), 101 departments, 333 arrondissements, and 34,875 communes. For instance, Caen is a commune in the Calvados department, which is itself in the Normandy region. An arrondissement is an administrative district, a subdivision of the department.

A commune represents the smallest administrative unit and is governed by a mayor (maire) and a municipal council. Exceptionally, in the cities of Marseille, Lyon, and Paris, each arrondissement has its own mayor and arrondissement council, while Paris is also an exception, being both a commune and a department at the same time.

It’s good to bear in mind that the voting system for Paris, Marseille, and Lyon was reformed on 11th August 2025. Under the new law, voters in these cities will now vote twice: once for the municipal council (which is in charge of choosing the mayor of the commune) and once for the arrondissement council.

Who do we call a "mayor"?

You may often see someone wearing écharpe tricolore (a sash in the colours of the French flag — blue, white, and red) at official events or ceremonies: that's the mayor!

Given the impressive number of mayors in France and the fact that around 40% of all communes in the European Union are French, it's easy to see that mayors are important political figures in the country. As the key executive of a commune and also the representative of the state, mayors have wide responsibilities ranging from local administration to the representation of the state.

What exactly do mayors do?

The mayor manages municipal services, budgets, local projects, urban planning, as well as cultural and sporting events. As officers of the judicial police, organising elections and patriotic ceremonies are also among the responsibilities of the mayor. They also technically head the municipal police of their commune (if it has one), though this usually serves more as an honorary role than an actual function, in practice.

How is a mayor elected?

Once the municipal councillors are elected and the municipal council is formed, they gather at their first session to elect the mayor. The mayor is elected by these members through a secret ballot with an absolute majority. It means that a mayor is elected indirectly by the residents. An absolute majority is needed in the first two rounds of voting, while a simple majority will be sufficient if a third round becomes necessary.

Who do the French vote for and how?

Every six years, French voters go to the polls to vote for the electoral lists to choose their municipal councillors through direct universal suffrage. The number of candidates corresponds to the number of councillors to be elected to the municipal council on these lists. These numbers are also proportional to the population of the commune. This process can be compared, in a sense, to the United States electoral college, which operates in a similar way.

In communes with fewer than 100 inhabitants, the council is constituted of 7 members, whilst this number can grow to 69 in communes with more than 300,000 inhabitants.

There is, once again, an exception: the law of 21st May 2025 amended the voting system for communes with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. In these municipalities, incomplete candidate lists are authorised, with up to two fewer candidates.

This action aims to address the lack of candidacies and increased resignations during office. The law also extends the use of gender-balanced lists to ensure gender parity.

For example, a list that normally consists of 7 candidates can still be considered complete with 5 candidates, allowing space to add 2 additional candidates, if needed.

Therefore, the law of 21st May 2025 also made the electoral system identical in communes with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants and those with more than 1,000 inhabitants.

If, in the first round, a list obtains the absolute majority (more than 50% of total votes), it receives half of the seats, whilst the remaining half is distributed proportionally among all other lists that received at least 5% of the votes. If no list obtains an absolute majority, a second round is organised. In the second round, only lists that received at least 10% of the votes in the first round can run again, whilst lists that received between 5% and 10% may merge with another list. The distribution of seats follows the same method as in the first round: half by majority bonus, half by proportional representation.

Who can vote?

There are some eligibility criteria to be allowed to vote in the municipal elections. Only those aged 18 years or over, who have French nationality, or are citizens of a member state of the European Union, and who are registered on the electoral lists with full civil and political rights, are allowed to vote.

How about running for mayor?

To become a mayor in France, a person should be elected as a municipal councillor first and meet the eligibility conditions for that office. To become a municipal councillor, the candidate must be a French citizen or a citizen of the EU. It is worth highlighting that EU citizens (who are not French nationals) cannot become mayor. The candidate must also be at least 18 years old, have fulfilled any military obligations, be registered as a voter in the commune or have a fiscal link to it, and should run only in one commune.

To be eligible to become a mayor, the eligibility criteria are to be elected as a municipal councillor, to have French citizenship (only), to be at least 18 years old, and to be a candidate in only one electoral district.

Candidates must also provide a statement confirming their commitment. This is a step to prevent the candidate from being included in a list against their will. The declaration of candidacy is also mandatory.

Here are some surprising facts about the municipal elections:

The competition is high:

While the requirements may look very demanding, in 2020, there were 902,465 candidates in the first round of municipal elections. Almost a million French citizens ran for municipal office, which means around 1 in 75 of the total population!

This equates to almost 1 in every 55 French votes, if you change the calculation and base it on the 49.5 million people registered on the electoral lists for the 2024 European Parliament elections. It might even exceed one million this year!

There are some restrictions:

It is possible to be both a mayor and a government minister at the same time, though it is rare. However, one cannot be a member of parliament while holding the mayoral position. Judges of the courts of appeal, judicial courts, or administrative courts, as well as salaried municipal employees, also cannot be elected as mayor in the communes that employ them.

The correct way of wearing the écharpe tricolore:

The wearing of the écharpe tricolore stated above, either as a belt or a sash, is regulated by article D2122-4 in the General Code of Local Authorities. Here's the rule:

Worn as a belt, the blue colour should be on top as opposed to on an écharpe, where the blue should be situated closest to the neck. Whilst this may sound like an oddly specific rule, there is, of course, a logic behind it. The goal is to distinguish the mayor from the member of the parliament.

So, now you know (almost) everything about the French municipal elections!

Whether eligible to run or vote or not, the municipal elections concern every French resident because the role of a mayor and a municipal council lies at the heart of the cities we live in. Their actions, decisions, and commitments in the local governance directly affect our daily lives.

Whether it is a metropolis like our Parisian capital, with more than 2 million inhabitants, or Beuvron-en-Auge, a Normandy town with only around 2,000 inhabitants, the elections take place all across France.