Grégory Doucet, the unknown who dethroned Gérard Collomb in Lyon

Text by: Anthony Lattier Follow | Julien Boileau

Unknown to the general public, the new mayor of the third city of France, is one of the faces of the green wave that swept through the municipal elections on Sunday. After this resounding victory, he wants to make Lyon a "benchmark" for ecological transformation in the world.

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From our special envoys in Lyon,

Barely elected and already Grégory Doucet wants to serve as an example to follow. At 46, he embodies this generation of ambitious and pressed environmentalists who no longer want the Greens to serve as left-wing auxiliaries and who assume to claim power.

New man against old baron

His profile matches that of his time: a business school in Rouen, humanitarian experience in Asia, before piloting Handicap International's operations in West Africa. Grégory Doucet has been campaigning with the Greens for only thirteen years.

Methodical and serious, he announced his ambitions quite late and many Lyonnaises did not learn his name until Sunday evening. But the fact of being a stranger, never elected and having only been living in Lyon for a decade did not serve him, on the contrary. It aroused a craze for a new man facing a weakened Gérard Collomb and entangled in a losing alliance with the right.

A winning green-pink-red alliance

Grégory Doucet gathered his camp before turning, after his 28.5% in the first round, on the side of the Socialists and "rebellious". Vilified by Gérard Collomb who raised the threat of a collapse of the Lyon economy and the coming to power of "  radical elements  ", this green-pink-red alliance proved to be the right one. It even wins in the 9th arrondissement of Lyon, the stronghold of the outgoing mayor.

A green recovery plan, the relocation of the agricultural sector, the revegetation of the city, the end of diesel, more cycle paths and buses, but also "  the protection of all living beings  " ... These are the main priorities of Grégory Doucet, who tried to reassure the actors of the economic world, worried: “  Ecology is not the enemy of the economy ; it is his best ally,  "he said Sunday evening, while not hiding his ambition to"  adapt Lyon to climate change  ". Gregory Doucet promises to do nothing "  against  " the Lyonnais.

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• 2020 municipal elections
• France
• French politics
• Gérard Collomb

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