Emmanuel Macron’s party braces for a kicking in mayoral elections

DRESSED IN A Barbour coat and clutching a NATO-embossed umbrella, the retired general strides down the streets as if into battle. “I’m not a politician,” declares Bertrand de la Chesnais as he knocks vigorously on doors, which are opened cautiously, if at all: “But I know how to run an organisation.” Dividing Carpentras into eight districts, he has chalked up 5,000 doors in this Provençal town of 29,000 people since last August. The general’s aim: to raise his profile as a candidate for mayor—backed by Marine Le Pen (pictured).

On March 15th and 22nd the French go to the polls for two rounds of voting for mayors of the country’s 35,000 towns and villages. At the previous elections, in 2014, Ms Le Pen’s populist party, National Rally (RN, formerly the National Front), won a record 11 town halls. It hopes to beat that this time. In Carpentras, with its 15th-century cathedral, shaded fountains and plentiful kebab shops, her candidate lost by just 306 votes after a three-way run-off against the Socialists and Republicans. Now the 62-year-old general, who led a United Nations battalion during the siege of Sarajevo, is hoping to take the town.