The rumor had been building for a few weeks now. It is now confirmed. The current mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo (PS), will not stand for election municipal elections of 2026 to run for a third term. Despite the first categorical denials from those around him and after months without announcing his intentionsthe councilor finally revealed that she was giving up on her re-election, in an interview given this Tuesday to World.
Several clues had already alerted us. Among the latest signals predicting a 2026 campaign without Anne Hidalgo, we can notably cite the great whirlwind currently taking place in the corridors of City Hall. We note in particular the imminent departure, announced several weeks ago, of the chief of staff of the mayor (PS) of Paris, in office for six years. A movement which is added to around ten others, since several leading positions have been renewed in recent weeks. A common practice at the end of a mandate with civil servants who want to ensure a future independent of the upcoming municipal election. Numerous meetings where the probable departure of Anne Hidalgo was discussed also regularly leaked to the media. As if to prepare the ground.
“I will not run for a third term. It’s a decision that I took a long time ago,” declared the socialist councilor, in charge of the capital since 2014, putting an end to the suspense of several months over his candidacy.
The mayor of the capital, widely acclaimed by Parisians in previous elections, will this time support the boss of the municipal majority and socialist senator Rémi Féraud.
Unknown to the general public, but very appreciated in his camp, the chosen one was given eighth in our Ipsos survey on the municipal elections, with 11% voting intentions in mid-November, against 16% for his rival Emmanuel Grégoire, former First Deputy of Paris.
“Mayor until the last day, with the same energy”
“I have always subscribed to the idea that two mandates were sufficient to carry out profound changes,” adds the outgoing mayor, 65, whose second mandate was marked by the popular success of the Olympic Games in the heart of the city. last summer.
Less than a year and a half before the municipal elections, Anne Hidalgo assures that she will be “mayor until the last day, with the same energy” as when she arrived at City Hall where she succeeded the socialist Bertrand Delanoë , in March 2014, becoming the first woman to lead Paris.
She said she wanted to announce her decision “sufficiently early” out of “respect” for Parisians and to prepare “a calm transmission” carried by the socialist senator Rémi Féraud, one of her great followers.
At 53, the former mayor of the 10th arrondissement who chairs the municipal majority group in the Council of Paris, “has the necessary solidity, seriousness and ability to unite”, according to Anne Hidalgo. “Rémi aims to become the next mayor of Paris. But it’s not me who decides (…). It will be up to the Parisian socialist activists to decide,” she said.
“Mayor until the last day, with the same energy”
His former first deputy Emmanuel Grégoirewho became a deputy and with whom she was at odds, declared himself a candidate last week, with the support of 450 socialist activists.
“I am not at all a presidential candidate” in 2027, specifies the former PS candidate who had recorded a historically low score in the 2022 presidential election.
After 2026, she wishes to “help the emergence of a social democratic and ecological force” with the PS, but also with MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, leader of Place publique, who could in her eyes “take leadership” of this force.
“At the same time, I will continue to invest in issues of climate justice, on a national and international scale,” indicates Anne Hidalgo who, according to Le Canard Enchaîné, could take the helm of the Bloomberg foundation in Brussels.
An expected announcement
If doubt remained about Anne Hidalgo’s candidacy, many members of her close entourage suggested that she would not run a third time. Near Le Parisien, some described in particular a mayor “tired of this grueling function, who had announced that she would serve two terms”.
In our poll, the mayor of Paris was also given third, with 28% of voting intentions, behind the Minister of Culture and opposition figure, Rachida Dati (39%), and the former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal (42%).