Ça va sans dire, the best place to follow the vote is POLITICO’s live blog, which will be back from Sunday.
It’s not only about mayors
Wannabe mayors are running alongside a host of candidates trying to get a seat in city councils.
Seats are distributed proportionally to each list based on their vote share, except for the winning list which, in most towns, automatically gets a majority. Things work differently in France’s three biggest cities, Paris, Marseille and Lyon, where the winning list is only guaranteed a quarter of the seats.
City councils also indirectly have a say on national politics as they represent a key chunk of the electoral college, made up of around 162,000 officials, which elects French senators.
Half the seats in the senate are contested every three years, with the next vote happening in September.
So far, the National Rally and the France Unbowed had little representation in the senate given their historical weakness at the local level. But that’s another thing that could change after Sunday’s vote.