In Thizy-les-Bourgs, the right-wing alliance has taken control of the town hall, a first in the Rhône department.

On Sunday evening, in Thizy-les-Bourgs, a small town of about 6.000 inhabitants west of the Rhône, the ballot boxes spoke clearly. Rémi Berthoux, 29, parliamentary assistant to National Rally MP Jonathan Géry, won the municipal election in the second round with 46,36% of the vote. His list, which had no official party affiliation, had been classified as a "far-right coalition" by the prefecture. A clear shift, and above all unprecedented in the department: never before had a team aligned with the nationalist right won a mayoral election there.

A political signal in Beaujolais

A political signal in Beaujolais. Facing him, the incumbent mayor, Ludovic Cherpin, a left-leaning independent, garnered 38,10% of the vote. Former mayor Martin Sotton, a right-leaning independent, who came in third in this second round, received 15,54% and still carries the shadow of a 2023 suspended prison sentence for inciting minors living in a children's home to consume alcohol. On the ground, the equation was simple: a three-way race, a weakened incumbent, and a united right wing that successfully captured the local mood. Berthoux summed it up in his own way on BFM Lyon: "We've proven that a right-wing alliance works locally."

Thizy-les-Bourgs is not a place that fell from the sky; it is a town with a political history, long marked by Michel Mercier, a centrist and former Minister of Justice, mayor from 1977 to 2001 and then from 2013 to 2017. But the electoral landscape has changed, and quite significantly: in the second round of the 2022 presidential election, Marine Le Pen He had obtained 51,17% of the vote. This municipal victory thus gives a face, an office, and the keys to the town hall to a movement that until now had been confined to mere election results. Now comes the most thankless, and most closely watched, moment: governing on a daily basis, keeping the promise of local efficiency, and honestly delivering on the message sent by this corner of the Rhône.