France, March 23 -- Most of France's almost 35,000 villages and towns elected municipal leaders in a first round last weekend, but the races went to run-offs on Sunday in about 1,500 communes, including bigger urban centres.

In Paris, Emmanuel Gregoire, a former deputy of outgoing Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo, beat right-wing former minister Rachida Dati.

Provisional results put 48-year-old Gregoire on 51 percent and Dati on 40 percent. Sonia Chikirou of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) came third with on around 8 percent.

Former justice and culture minister Dati, a protegee of convicted ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, had hoped to seize Paris for the right after 25 years of rule by the Socialists, and become its second female mayor in...