User:Pylambert/Ethnic pluralism in French politics

Municipalities
For the first time ever, the 3 main parties (center-right UMP and MoDem, and center-left PS) put on top of a 50-odd lists candidates with a non-European ethnic background ("candidats de la diversité"), most either from North Africa, a few from the French Caribbean departments or Subsaharan Africa, most against incumbent mayors from the opposite party (right vs left, left vs right or socialist vs communist), thus with lower chances to succeed.

There are only 4 incumbent mayors with non-European roots, all in communes with less than 5,000 inhabitants where the percentage of residents with the same origin is close to nil: Xavier Cadoret, born in Morocco as Karim Kadouri, nonpartisan left ("divers gauche") mayor of Saint-Gérand-le-Puy (Allier, 1,029 inhabitants) since the death of the previous mayor in 1991, reelected in 1995 and 2001 ; Éric Besson, born in Morocco from a Lebanese mother, since 1995 mayor (member of the Socialist Party till 2007, when he entered the Fillon center-right government) of Donzère (Drôme, 4,700 inhabitants); Mahfoud Aomar, nonpartisan mayor of Guerchy (Yonne, 601 inhabitants) since 2001; Kaddour Derrar, nonpartisan left ("divers gauche") mayor of Condette (Pas-de-Calais, 2,675 inhabitants) since 2001, when the former mayor endorsed him as his successor.

All known previous mayors with non-European roots had already been elected in small towns or villages: Raphaël Élizé, from Martinique, mayor of Sablé-sur-Sarthe (Sarthe) from 1929 to his removal and subsequent race-based deportation by the Nazis in 1940 (he was a collateral victim of an Allied bombing near Buchenwald in 1945), Guyanese-born senator Gaston Monnerville in Saint-Céré (Lot) from 1964 to 1971, Togolese-born Kofi Yamgnane (Socialist Party, junior member of the government in 1991-1993 under Édith Cresson and Pierre Bérégovoy, member of the National Assembly from 1997 to 2002) in Saint-Coulitz (Finistère, 386 inhabitants) from 1989 to 2001, Algerian-born Youssef Hamami, mayor of Boviolles (Meuse, 91 inhabitants) from 1995 to 2001, Ahmed Abdelkader, mayor of Ceilhes-et-Rocozels (Herault, 256 inhabitants) from 1995 to 2001.