Sawt Falasteen - French right-wing ex-minister vies for Paris city hall

But concerns over safety and rubbish collection could usher in a return of the right in local polls starting on Sunday.

Rachida Dati, a right-winger who until recently was the culture minister, wants to become the capital's second woman mayor in a row.

Dati, 60, hopes to replace Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo, 66, who is to step down after two terms in the post, leaving behind a legacy that includes making the Seine swimmable for the first time in a century for the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Dati has thrown all she has into her campaign for city hall, despite a trial looming in September on corruption charges she denies.

Riding on the back of a garbage collector's truck for her social media accounts, she has promised a city that is clean seven days a week.

Also a former justice minister, Dati wants to boost law and order by giving weapons to municipal police officers and increasing video surveillance.

Her main rival is 48-year-old Socialist candidate Emmanuel Gregoire, Hidalgo's deputy.

He wants to increase the number of bike lanes, parks and green walking paths, as well as improve public housing in a capital of 2 million people where rent is often prohibitive.

"Paris could well swing to the right," said Mathieu Gallard of the IPSOS BVA pollster.

"The race right now looks tight," he added, with many Parisians demanding change, but also a tendency to vote for the left in recent elections.

- Prestigious role -

The role of Paris mayor -- held by the left since 2001 -- is coveted not only for being a glamourous position leading one of the world's most visited cities, but also as a past launching pad for the presidency.

The late Jacques Chirac, also from the right, was in charge of the French capital from 1977 to 1995 before he was elected head of state.

Hidalgo, the outgoing mayor, however scored just 1.7 percent in the last presidential elections.

Supporters credit Hidalgo and her Green allies with boosting bike lanes and pushing out traffic from the city centre. According to one study, nitrogen dioxide -- a gas emitted by cars -- dropped by 40 percent between 2012 and 2022 in the Paris region.

But critics accuse her of merely shifting traffic elsewhere, while also allowing security, cleanliness and public transport to deteriorate.

"We've come a long way, but we need to take it even further," Hidalgo said this week, as she planted a tree in a Paris square.

Dati winning "would really be a step backward", she added.

Dati is in September to appear in court charged with having received 900,000 euros from a subsidiary of carmaker Renault-Nissan between 2010 and 2012 when she was a member of the European Parliament.

She denies the allegations.

Gregoire is campaigning after accusations school monitors employed by the city physically or sexually abused kindergarten pupils.

He has pledged to improve the training of school monitors.

- 'Emily in Paris' -

Any successful candidate will have to win at least 10 percent of the vote in the first round, and then form alliances to emerge victorious in the runoffs a week later on March 22.

Apart from Dati and Gregoire, three others could make it through, according to the opinion polls. They are centre-right candidate Pierre-Yves Bournazel, hard-left candidate Sophia Chikirou and far-right hopeful Sarah Knafo.

"This Sunday Parisians will have an easy choice -- to either continue as before or change," Dati told supporters on Thursday night in the neighbourhood of Montmartre.

Several kilometres away in the Cirque d'Hiver -- an indoor arena theatre -- Gregoire urged his fans to "resist".

"Dati wants Paris to look like an episode of 'Emily in Paris', but that is not the reality of our city," he said, referring to the popular Netflix show.

"Paris is alive, Paris is green, Paris is proud, Paris stands in solidarity, Paris is working class, Paris is feminist. It reinvents itself each generation," he said.

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O.Salim--SF-PST