A survey by Cluster 17 shows incumbent Benoît Payan is on track to win decisively in Sunday’s runoff.
PARIS — The far-right National Rally looks headed for defeat in Marseille’s mayoral race Sunday, according to a poll shared exclusively with POLITICO.
The survey from Cluster 17 shows incumbent Mayor Benoît Payan scoring 53 percent of the vote, 14 points ahead of the National Rally’s candidate, Franck Allisio. Martine Vassal, who is backed by centrists and conservatives, is on track to get 8 percent of the vote.
In the first round of voting last Sunday, Allisio and Payan were neck and neck, raising hopes among National Rally supporters that the far right could take Marseille, France’s second-largest city.
But far-left candidate Sébastien Delogu, who got close to 12 percent of the vote in the first round, pulled out of the runoff in the hopes of stopping an Allisio victory.
Jean-Yves Dormagen, the president of Cluster 17, said his institute’s survey showed two-thirds of those who voted for Delogu in the first round are expected to back the center-left Payan.
Despite Allisio’s historically strong performance in the first round, a far-right victory in Marseille was widely seen as a long shot.
Still, the loss will sting given the National Rally was hoping to gain momentum ahead of the 2027 presidential election and prove it can break the glass ceiling keeping it out of power.