Aurélie Assouline, a Les Républicains deputy mayor in Paris's 17th district, announced on Saturday that she is joining Sarah Knafo's campaign for the 2026 municipal elections. She will lead the list in her district, facing outgoing mayor Geoffroy Boulard. This move highlights divisions on the right in the race for Paris city hall.
Aurélie Assouline, deputy mayor to the Les Républicains mayor of Paris's 17th district, announced her decision to join Sarah Knafo's campaign, Reconquête's lead candidate for the March 2026 municipal elections, in an interview with the Journal du dimanche on Saturday, February 7, 2026.
Ms. Assouline, who remains loyal to her Les Républicains political family, will head Ms. Knafo's list in the northwestern 17th district of Paris. She will thus face Geoffroy Boulard, the outgoing LR mayor to whom she was deputy and who supports Rachida Dati, invested by LR, MoDem, and UDI for the central city hall.
"I am a Les Républicains elected official - and I remain faithful to my political family - but my party has chosen to invest in a candidate who belongs to Emmanuel Macron's government," explained Ms. Assouline. She believes that "Sarah Knafo's project (...) is the only one to fully assume a right-wing ambition for Paris".
Questioned about the union of the rights, bringing together the right and the far right, the elected official considers that "in Paris, Sarah (Knafo) is the only one who can achieve it".
This announcement comes as the Paris municipal elections appear tight. According to a Cluster 17 poll for Politico published on Monday, Sarah Knafo is credited with 10% of voting intentions in the first round, behind Emmanuel Grégoire (left-wing union excluding LFI) at 33%, Rachida Dati at 26%, Pierre-Yves Bournazel (Horizons-Renaissance) at 14%, and Sophia Chikirou (LFI) at 12%.
Meanwhile, the six main candidates, including Sarah Knafo, were auditioned on Friday, February 6, by the Paris branches of Medef and CPME on their economic visions, before 400 entrepreneurs. Pierre-Yves Bournazel notably proposed creating a "council of entrepreneurs" to involve business leaders in public policies.
