Strasbourg (AFP)
The head of the list of the socialist party in the municipal elections in Strasbourg, Mathieu Cahn, announced Wednesday that he was giving up his place to the former minister and mayor of Strasbourg Catherine Trautmann.
She had supported Mathieu Cahn's candidacy at the beginning of November and initially appeared in N.2 on her list, which was barely seen in the latest polls.
Mathieu Cahn said Wednesday at a press conference that he was retiring in order to "defend himself publicly" in the trial of one of his collaborators at the Maison des associations, of which he was the president. A trial where he is not prosecuted himself.
"I never imagined being at the top of the list," assured Mrs. Trautmann, already elected mayor of Strasbourg twice, in 1989 and then in 1995. "I am neither a ghost nor a ghost, no, I am alive and well, and if I hadn't planned to be in this position at all, I have to take responsibility too. "
"My ambition is that we win," added this local political figure, who was also Minister of Culture and Communication from June 1997 to March 2000 in the government of Lionel Jospin.
The fact that it takes the head of the socialist list is likely to redistribute the cards in the campaign for the municipal ones in Strasbourg, where Alain Fontanel (LREM) and Jeanne Barseghian (Greens) seemed until there to race in the lead.
Supporting Mathieu Cahn's candidacy in early November, Catherine Trautmann had promised a "proximity" and "contact" campaign in the face of the "national armada" deployed by LREM to support Alain Fontanel, with many ministerial visits.
Already in charge of developing the socialist list project, she said she was convinced that the Strasbourg people expected more local engagement from the candidates than an "heir posture", again targeting Alain Fontanel including the outgoing socialist mayor, Roland Ries, had made his Dolphin for a while.
At 75, Roland Ries, who is completing a second consecutive mandate (after having been mayor from 1997 to 2000 when Catherine Trautmann was a member of the Jospin government), does not stand for re-election.
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