The current mayor of Lyon Gérard Collomb (PS) should have faced UMP candidate Dominique Perben and MoDem candidate Christophe Geourjon, who finally chose to join the Perben list.
In the 2001 French municipal elections, the Socialist Gérard Collomb won the country's second largest city from the UDF.
Surprisingly, the two highly presumed candidates for the centrist MoDem and the far-right National Front, Azouz Begag and Bruno Gollnisch respectively both announced their intentions not to stand.
Two nationalist right-wing parties, the MPF and the DLC (led by Charles Millon), made agreements with Dominique Perben, who inserted their candidates on his list.
Subsequently, former right-wing mayor Michel Noir has openly distanced himself from Perben, most notably in a February interview with the Lyon daily Le Progrès.