The Lyon Administrative Court has annulled the municipal election in Venissieux after finding false residency declarations by a far-right candidate distorted the final result.
Judges ruled that the irregularities called into question the integrity of the vote, which left-wing party La France Insoumise won by just 25 votes in March.
The court also handed Quentin Taieb, head of the joint Rassemblement National and Union des Droites pour la Republique list, a 24-month ban from standing for public office.
Taieb finished heavily defeated in the second round, gathering just over 1,000 votes. However, the public rapporteur told the hearing that Taieb and several running mates acted with fraudulent intent that could have altered the outcome of the tight contest.
Judges decided that the narrow 25-vote gap between the winning list led by Idir Boumertit and outgoing Communist mayor Michele Picard compromised the whole election. A new election must now take place within six weeks, creating an administrative challenge alongside the upcoming French presidential election in April and early May.
Second local election annulled in Vaulx-en-Velin
In a separate decision, the Lyon Administrative Court also cancelled the March election result in neighboring Vaulx-en-Velin. Abdelkader Lahmar had won that contest by 104 votes over outgoing Socialist mayor Helene Geoffroy.
Magistrates identified an electoral code violation on a miscellaneous centre list, which failed to state the Dutch nationality of one candidate. The local prefecture subsequently invalidated all votes cast for that list.
Lahmar said he intended to appeal against the decision before the Council of State, the highest administrative court in France.
Third vote threatened in Saint-Fons
The election of Hadi Mebarki in nearby Saint-Fons is also at risk after the public rapporteur recommended cancelling the result during a court hearing.
The recommendation followed an irregularity on the list of outgoing miscellaneous left mayor Christian Duchene, which omitted the Portuguese nationality of a candidate. Although the prefecture requested that officials exclude those ballots, several were counted anyway. The administrative court has yet to issue its final ruling.
Electoral regulations and regional politics
Under French electoral law, municipal candidate lists must declare the nationality of all non-French European Union citizens standing for election. Administrative courts in France handle local election disputes and hold the authority to cancel results when technical breaches or fraud affect narrow margins.
Venissieux is a suburb of Lyon with 65,000 residents located in the Rhone department. La France Insoumise, a major left-wing political movement led nationally by Jean-Luc Melenchon, established its presence in the municipality by winning the seat for the first time in March.
Rassemblement National is France's leading far-right political party, while the French Communist Party and Socialist Party have traditionally held strong municipal strongholds across the working-class suburbs of Lyon.
