Lille (AFP)
The Minister of Action and Public Accounts, Gérald Darmanin, announced Monday that he was a candidate, as head of the list, in the municipal elections in his city of Tourcoing (North), in an interview with La Voix du Nord .
"After having spoken a lot with the municipal team, I will lead the list to the municipal elections in Tourcoing" on March 15 and 22. President Emmanuel Macron "authorized me to be on an electoral campaign" and "if I am at the top of the list, it is to be mayor", says Mr. Darmanin, already at the head of the city of Tourcoing from 2014 to 2017 .
One way of implying that he could leave the government in the relatively near future.
"We had discussions with Jean-Marie Vuylsteker (the current mayor) and we concluded that I was the best placed to carry the municipal aspirations in the continuity of what we did for six years. I am so top of the list, "he said.
If the minister had indicated that he would reveal his candidacy at Valentine's Day on February 14, he finally chose to declare himself earlier because of "the strong enthusiasm" on the ground: "I did not feel not to keep some of the people waiting, "says Gérald Darmanin.
The 37-year-old heavyweight of the government, who notably put to music the reform of the withholding tax on income tax in 2019, joined La République en Marche in the fall of 2017 a few months after his entry into government.
Close to Xavier Bertrand and Nicolas Sarkozy, he was elected mayor of Tourcoing under the UMP label in 2014 with 45% of the votes and 671 votes ahead of the outgoing socialist mayor, at the end of a triangle facing the PS and FN candidates.
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