Our comrades from Révolution Permanente (RP) in France — part of La Izquierda Diario network and our international organization the Current for Permanent Revoltion (CPR-FI) — ran candidates for the municipal elections held this Sunday, March 15, across nine districts throughout the country. With an anti-capitalist platform and slates composed of trade union and student activists, anti-racist organizers, workers, teachers, lawyers, and revolutionary militants, they won two seats on the municipal council of Saint-Denis and achieved very strong results nationwide. This was the first time the organization has run candidates in these elections.

RP slates garnered over 12,000 votes nationally in Saint-Denis, Paris 13, Saint-Avold, Toulouse, Le Mans, Rennes, Marseille, Montpellier, and Bordeaux. With 7.13 percent of the vote, Elsa Marcel and Dorian Gonthier won seats on the Saint-Denis municipal council. Labor leader Christian Porta secured 6.33 percent in Saint-Avold, and Mathilde Lanté achieved 7.4 percent in the 4th and 5th districts of Marseille. Furthermore, the RP lists significantly outperformed other left-wing forces wherever they competed — including Lutte Ouvrière (LO).

« Ce soir c’est une énorme défaite pour le PS, LFI remporte la mairie et Revolution Permanente entre au conseil municipal avec le plus gros score de l’extrême-gauche depuis des décennies. C’est que le début ! » @Elsa_Marcel après la proclamation des résultats à Saint-Denis. pic.twitter.com/VESbvmmvSA

— Révolution Permanente (@RevPermanente) March 16, 2026

“Tonight marks a crushing defeat for the Socialist Party. La France Insoumise wins the mayorship, and Révolution Permanente enters the municipal council with the strongest result for the Far Left in decades. This is just the beginning!” declared Elsa Marcel following the announcement of the results in Saint-Denis.

Our comrades from Révolution Permanente also secured 2.91 percent of the vote in the 13th Arrondissement of Paris with candidate Ariane Anemoyannis; 1.75 percent in Rennes with a slate including Erell Duclos; 1.65 percent in Le Mans with the candidacy of Benjamin Sainty; and 1.40 percent in Montpellier with a slate headed by Max Muller.

« Pour Elsa et Dorian, allez, allez ! »

Scène de liesse à Saint-Denis devant la mairie après les résultats du premier tour : Hanotin est battu et Révolution Permanente au Conseil Municipal ! pic.twitter.com/GCZfpsXfdL

— Révolution Permanente (@RevPermanente) March 15, 2026

Below we republish a statement released by Révolution Permanente on the results of the elections.

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In its first municipal elections, Révolution Permanente garnered 12,000 votes nationwide and achieved significant results in several cities — including a historic outcome in Saint-Denis, where Elsa Marcel and Dorian Gonthier secured seats on the municipal council. This serves as a foothold for building a revolutionary Left within the country.

This Sunday, nine candidates from RP stood in the municipal elections. This marked a first for our revolutionary organization, which has gained prominence in recent years for its active role in the country’s workers’ and student movements, its solidarity with Palestine, and its revolutionary run in the 2022 presidential election — where Anasse Kazib secured over 160 official endorsements. Following successful campaigns that resonated deeply in every city where we fielded candidates, the results achieved by our slates in this first round constitute a genuine success.

In total — and against a backdrop of high voter abstention, the ongoing crisis of Macronism, and political polarization — our anti-capitalist platform garnered over 12,000 votes nationwide. This platform advocates for the requisition of vacant housing, directly challenges the prevailing “security consensus” and the arming of municipal police forces, and incorporates measures such as placing public services under the control of workers and communities, as well as ending state subsidies for large corporations. This vision was championed by slates composed of workers, students, and lawyers dedicated to serving the public — groups that loudly and clearly highlight the urgent need to rebuild a revolutionary left in this country to fight back against the corporate class and professional politicians.

Breakthroughs in Saint-Denis, Saint-Avold, Marseille, and Paris (13th Arrondissement)

In Saint-Denis — the second-largest city in the Île-de-France region, where Socialist Party (PS) Mayor Hanotin was defeated in the first round by Bally Bagayoko (a member of La France Insoumise) — the slate led by lawyer Elsa Marcel secured over 7 percent of the vote (totaling 1,894 votes) and won two seats on the municipal council. This marks the highest electoral result ever achieved by a far-left campaign in the city’s history — a feat made possible by a sustained, long-term campaign targeting not only the incumbent mayor but also the Communist Party (PCF), holding it accountable for decades of municipal mismanagement that has contributed to the city’s current dire situation, as well as for the half-measures advocated by the joint LFI-PCF slate. From the issue of police brutality to that of rent costs — spanning concerns regarding healthcare, housing, and education, and not forgetting the struggle against the genocide in Palestine — RP sought throughout the campaign to offer anti-capitalist answers to the aspirations of local residents, placing the imperative of building a response “from below” at the very center of its efforts. At Saint-Denis City Hall last night, these results were met with immense enthusiasm by the large number of activists and supporters who took part in the campaign.

In Saint-Avold, Moselle — a stronghold of the Far Right — RP backed the “Workers’ and Solidarity” slate led by Christian Porta: an agri-food worker, trade union activist, and member of RP nationally renowned for his successful fight for reinstatement following his firing. The list secured 6.3 percent of the vote, garnering over 400 votes. In a political landscape dominated by local political elites and the Far Right, this result signals the emergence of a new political force — structured around workers, former “Yellow Vest” activists, and trade unionists — situated at the heart of a working-class town in which the National Rally (RN) hopes to gain influence. “Obviously, one cannot erase decades of deindustrialization, social resignation, betrayals by the institutional Left, and reactionary media onslaughts in the span of a single election; however, this marks an important milestone,” explained RP’s candidates, who drew nearly 250 people to a campaign rally just one week prior to the vote. Finally, in the 4th and 5th arrondissements of Marseille, lawyer Mathilde Lanté garnered over 2,500 votes comprising 7.4 percent of the total vote. This result is a testament to the significant strides made by RP in a city where our organization has been active for only a few years — this victory is a sharp rebuke of the media blackout surrounding Lanté’s candidacy in recent months. Similarly, in Paris’s 13th Arrondissement, university activist Ariane Anemoyannis secured 1,913 votes and 2.9 percent of the vote. This represents a very significant result for such a vast Parisian district; it reflects a grassroots campaign that successfully mobilized a broad base of support and forged ties with local struggles — whether that of hospital staff at Pitié-Salpêtrière, artists at Les Frigos, or immigrant children. Furthermore, the campaign tackled key local issues, such as denouncing Xavier Niel’s stranglehold on the 13th Arrondissement and advocating for the requisition of Station F to be placed under residents’ control. This success comes just a few months after Le Poing Levé — the university organization for which Ariane Anemoyannis is a representative — garnered 25,000 votes nationwide during the CROUS student elections.1In recent student elections for CROUS (Regional Centre for University and School Services) in February 2026, Le Poing Levé, the student group of RP, became the fourth largest political force in the student movement nationally, averaging 18.1 percent of the vote across the 13 schools where it ran, securing 17 representatives. They were the leading force in Bordeaux, with 31.23 percent of the vote, and the second largest in major academies such as Paris, Toulouse, Versailles, and Créteil.

A New Revolutionary Left Begins to Make Itself Heard

Wherever they stood for election, RP’s revolutionary slates achieved relatively high vote totals — this is an achievement in light of the local weight of the institutional Left and the presence of a multitude of far-left slates. In Rennes, RP garnered 1.8 percent of the vote (1,298 votes) in the face of three other far-left lists — from the PT, LO, and NPA-R — while in Bordeaux, under similar circumstances, we secured 0.9 percent of the vote (895 votes). These were scenarios in which we had nationally proposed to *Lutte Ouvrière* and the NPA-R that we launch joint lists—a proposal that met with no success. In Le Mans — a city where RP has existed for only a few years — our working-class and revolutionary slate obtained 1.65 percent of the vote (757 votes), while in Montpellier, Max Muller secured 1.4 percent (1,220 votes) within an ultra-fragmented political landscape. The 1 percent of the vote garnered by Vanessa Pedinotti in Toulouse (1,611 votes) — despite the presence of a deeply entrenched and dynamic La France Insoumise — also demonstrates the resonance of a campaign that placed the rejection of militarization at its very center. All told, by widening the gap between itself and the rest of the Far Left across the board, these results demonstrate that a new revolutionary Left is beginning to make itself heard.

These results are inseparable from the dynamic campaigns that preceded them — campaigns during which RP activists, along with the hundreds of people who came forward to lend a hand, knocked on tens of thousands of doors, organized hundreds of leaflet distribution drives, and drew over 2,600 people to their campaign rallies. These efforts served to bring to the fore issues such as the rejection of austerity, radical opposition to militarization, the denunciation of professional politicians, the necessity of an anti-capitalist environmentalist movement, the rejection of gentrification policies, and — in the case of Bordeaux — the city’s history of slavery. They also placed central emphasis on anti-imperialism, denouncing the genocide in Palestine as well as the imperialist war against Iran and France’s complicity through its so-called “protection operations.” Finally, these issues were articulated through a dialogue with workers, young people, and residents of working-class neighborhoods, seeking to link our anti-capitalist program to massive problems such as housing and public services. At the same time, we sought to openly challenge the prevailing security consensus — including the arming of municipal police and the use of video surveillance — not by making empty electoral promises, but by presenting a program of struggle that must be won through mass mobilization.

These are all subjects on which we sought to open a debate, positioning ourselves as the fiercest opponents of the incumbent mayors — whether they be Greens like Hurmic (and his security-focused record in Bordeaux); Socialists like Delafosse, Hanotin, or Le Foll (in Montpellier, Saint-Denis, and Le Mans, respectively); or right-wing mayors like Moudenc (in Toulouse). Yet, while doing so, we also highlighted the dead end represented by the institutional strategies of La France Insoumise — whether regarding the fight to end police violence, the requisitioning of vacant housing, or the effort to put an end to professional politicians — by instead advocating for the right to recall elected officials and for their salaries to be capped at the level of a nurse or a teacher. This political debate was sustained throughout the entire campaign — a campaign during which RP nevertheless consistently defended La France Insoumise against the regime’s campaign of criminalization, which intensified in the wake of the death of neo-fascist activist Quentin Deranque.

These are the very issues that Révolution Permanente will continue to champion — within workers’ and student struggles, within mobilizations in working-class neighborhoods, and within the Saint-Denis municipal council — acting as a conduit for these communities’ struggles and ensuring that a revolutionary voice is heard. Above all — at a time marked by the resurgence of wars and the advance of the Far Right — the resonance of anti-capitalist and revolutionary ideas highlights the imperative of forging a project capable of organizing these aspirations. Such a project must harness them for the purpose of rebuilding a revolutionary, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist Left — one firmly rooted in workplaces and educational institutions — rather than squandering them on yet another round of alliances with the institutional Left, which ultimately serve only to bolster the enemies of the working class, such as the Socialist Party. This is also the prerequisite for securing genuine victories for workers and the masses in the face of the ruling classes’ agenda.

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