While the Paris mayor has kept a close eye on the upcoming municipal election scheduled for March 2026, it was another deadline that preoccupied the Socialist leader. After two terms, Anne Hidalgo chose not to seek re-election but instead set her sights on a different position – this time, in Switzerland. On December 31, the position of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), based in Geneva, will become vacant, and Hidalgo hopes to succeed Italian diplomat Filippo Grandi, who has held the office since 2016.

Hidalgo had not yet officially submitted her candidacy – the deadline is October 6 – but she has been campaigning for months. As early as late November 2024, when she announced in Le Monde that she would not seek a third term, she explained her intention to "continue to invest [herself] in issues of climate justice, on both a national and international scale."

Since then, the mayor intensified her international activity and has made numerous trips: in early April, she traveled to New York to meet with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who will be responsible for submitting a nominee for UNHCR to the General Assembly for a vote; at the end of May, she traveled to Kenya for the UN-Habitat General Assembly; on June 2, she also attended the annual meeting of the Olympic Refuge Foundation in Lausanne, Switzerland.

You have 77.29% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.