The Left’s campaign for the Marseille mayor’s office was always going to be an uphill battle — not impossible, though more than a bit improbable, according to the pundits at least. Now, just days before the final round of France’s local elections, the leaders of a united left coalition are confident they’ll be able to kick out the right-wing political machine that’s governed France’s second city for the last twenty-five years.

“I know we’re going to win,” Olivia Fortin, one of the leading candidates for Le Printemps Marseillais, or the Marseille Spring coalition, told me over the phone as she flyered on the final weekend of campaigning. “I know our project is the right one.”

If Fortin’s prediction holds, it would mark arguably the biggest victory for France’s fragmented left in municipal elections which have already been upended by the COVID-19 crisis. After first heading to the polls on March 15, Marseille voters — like those nationwide — have had to wait more than three months before being able to cast their ballots in Sunday’s runoff. Yet the delay apparently hasn’t reduced their appetite for change.