Paris Mayor Anne Hildalgo will not run again in 2026

Photo: Valentine Chapuis archives Agence France-Presse Anne Hidalgo at a political rally in Toulouse in March 2022, when she was a candidate in the presidential election.

Agence France-Presse in Paris

Published at 0:25 Updated at 0:30

• Europe

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, whose city hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer, will not be running for a third term in 2026, she announced in an interview with the daily newspaper Le Monde published on Tuesday.

“I will not be running for a third term. “It's a decision I made a long time ago,” declared the socialist mayor, who has been in charge of the capital since 2014, ending several months of suspense over his candidacy.

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“I have always believed that two terms were enough to carry out profound changes,” added the outgoing mayor, 65, whose second term was marked by the popular success of the Olympic Games in the heart of the city.

Anne Hidalgo has nevertheless been weakened by the historic failure of her candidacy for the 2022 presidential election (1.7% of the vote), and her recent decision to limit the maximum speed to 50 km/h on the Paris ring road, one of the busiest roads in France, has caused an outcry among elected officials on the right and in government.

Less than a year and a half before the municipal elections, Anne Hidalgo assures that she will be “mayor until the last day, with the same energy” as when she arrived at City Hall where she succeeded the socialist Bertrand Delanoë in March 2014, becoming the first woman to lead Paris.

She says she wanted to announce her decision “early enough” out of “respect” for Parisians and to prepare for “a peaceful handover” led by the socialist senator Rémi Féraud, one of her loyal followers, whom she hopes to see succeed her.

Her former first assistant Emmanuel Grégoire, who became a member of parliament and with whom she had been on bad terms, declared himself a candidate last week, with the support of 450 socialist activists.

Asked about her future projects, Anne Hidalgo told Monde that she was “not at all a candidate” in the next presidential election.

At the end of October, the weekly Le Canard Enchaîné had stated that she was in contact with the former mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg with a view to taking over the management of his foundation in Brussels.