Four days before the first round of the 2026 Paris municipal elections, Rachida Dati, the right-wing candidate, acknowledged at a rally that the race would be very tight. She urged voters to show responsibility by choosing reason. This mobilization comes as she trails Emmanuel Grégoire in voting intentions.
On March 12, 2026, Rachida Dati gathered her supporters at L’Élysée Montmartre, a concert hall in Paris's 18th arrondissement. The Republicans candidate emphasized the uncertainty of the vote, stating: “We've won, but we haven't won yet!”. She acknowledged that the first round, scheduled for the following Sunday, would be “very tight,” despite regularly trailing Emmanuel Grégoire in polls.
Amid uncertainties, particularly regarding Pierre-Yves Bournazel's stance from Horizons in the inter-round period and Sarah Knafo's score from Reconquête, Dati aimed to represent the useful vote from the first round. Without using the term explicitly, she hammered home an appeal to responsibility: “If on Sunday it's the choice of the heart, make the choice of the heart. If it's the choice of reason, I ask you to make the choice of reason.”
This speech fits into a tense campaign for the 2026 Paris municipal elections, where alliance dynamics could prove decisive.
