From major cities such as Paris and Marseille to rural villages in the centre of the country, France cast its final votes on 22 March in a second round of voting for its local political representatives.

Beyond the ideological battle between sharply divided factions (from the Social Democrats who won in Paris to the far right that triumphed in Nice), the variety of candidates seeking the support of their neighbours on the municipal council was vast.

Specifically, some 200 evangelical Christians were invited to join local political initiatives ahead of these elections, with political parties of various ideologies.

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According to the magazine Réforme, the National Council of Evangelicals of France (CNEF) reportedly received many questions in recent months from evangelical Christians who had been invited by political parties to join their lists ahead of the vote and were unsure whether to accept, or how to get involved in politics.

Ideological freedom, a focus on service and freedoms

In 2025, the CNEF set out its position on the political involvement of believers in a document. Both withdrawing from public life and the pursuit of power could be extremes to be avoided, they said.

Serving on a city council is a civic responsibility that some evangelicals would do well to take on, especially when seeking “to act in favour of peace, the common good, and to preserve fundamental freedoms, in particular freedom of conscience, thought and religion, and freedom of expression”.

Every elected councillor has a duty to contribute proposals, creativity and collective intelligence. At the same time, the CNEF emphasised, evangelicals are encouraged to “share the Gospel through an embodied testimony and in a spirit of service in the image of Christ”, whilst avoiding “any strategy aimed at imposing a Christian hegemony on society”.

“Dozens of evangelicals elected” in 2026

Evangelical Focus, once the results were known, contacted Thierry Le Gall, the CNEF’s liaison with politicians. He confirmed that “dozens of evangelical Christians have been elected to city councils across France”. To identify who they are and in which towns, Le Gall explained, would be “culturally difficult”.

In mid-February, the CNEF organised an online prayer event for the municipal elections.

Neither the CNEF nor the Protestant Federation of France (the other body representing Protestants) endorses any particular party, and both insist that it is up to the conscience of each believer to decide how they engage in the pursuit of the common good of their community.

Great diversity

A recent report by Pew Research found that France is the country in Europe with the greatest spiritual diversity.

In 2023, evangelical churches accounted for 2,530 registered places of worship. That year, the CNEF counted 745,000 evangelical Christians in France.

By 2025, free evangelical Christians had become the majority of Protestants in the country.