Administration
Marseille is divided into 16 municipal arrondissements, which are themselves informally divided into quartiers (111 in total). The arrondissements are regrouped in pairs, into 8 secteurs, each with a mayor and council (like the arrondissements in Paris and Lyon).
Municipal elections are held every six years and are carried out by secteur. There are 303 councillors in total, two thirds sitting in the secteur councils and one third in the city council.
From 1950 to the mid 1990s, Marseille was a socialist and communist stronghold. The socialist Gaston Defferre was consecutively re-elected six times as Mayor of Marseille from 1953 until his death in 1986. He was succeeded by Robert Vigouroux of the RDSE. Jean-Claude Gaudin of the right-wing UMP was elected mayor in 1995. Gaudin won re-election in 2001 and 2008.
In recent years, the Communist Party has lost most of its strength in the northern boroughs of the city, whereas the far-right National Front has received significant support.
At the last municipal election in 2008, Marseille was divided between the northern boroughs dominated by the left and the more affluent southern Marseille, dominated by the right, with the centre and eastern parts of the city as battlegrounds, allowing for a narrow re-election of the UMP administration.
The cantons of Marseille :
Marseille is also divided in 25 cantons, each of them returning a member of the General Council of the Bouches-du-Rhône département.
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