The French Local Elections Where Nobody Really Won
The most surprising outcome of the municipal vote is maybe that there were very few surprises.
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Bonjour et Bienvenue to the Paris Edition. I’m Bloomberg Opinion columnist Lionel Laurent. If you haven’t yet, subscribe now to the Paris Edition newsletter.
This week’s French local elections were largely a sideshow next to the war in Iran, which threatens to push up inflation and hurt growth in Europe’s No. 2 economy. But they did offer an important test of the national mood a little over a year away from presidential elections that will have a large influence on the future direction of the continent. While the scattered nature of the results means no party can convincingly say it “won,” there are small signs of hope for the political center in its uphill struggle to beat the extremes.