Elected mayor of Tourcoing, Minister Gérald Darmanin intends to combine - France 24

Lille (AFP)

Gérald Darmanin was elected mayor of Tourcoing (North) on Saturday, a function he intends to combine, at least for a time, with his ministerial portfolio with, according to several concordant sources, the blessing of the Macron-Philippe duo.

Exit therefore the jurisprudence established by Lionel Jospin in 1997 which wants that a minister cannot direct a local executive.

Admittedly, this is an unwritten rule but Prime Minister Edouard Philippe made it his own by hammering in September 2019: "each minister can be a candidate" for the municipal elections but "when one is a minister, one cannot cumulate with the head of a local executive ".

Aged 37, the Minister of Action and Public Accounts - whose list had won hands down in the first round, on March 15, with 60.9% of the vote against a record of abstention (74 , 6%) - was elected without surprise mayor at the Saturday morning meeting of the municipal council of Tourcoing, the second largest city in the North, behind Lille, with its 100,000 inhabitants.

Gérald Darmanin therefore finds the seat occupied between March 2014, when he had uprooted the city from the PS, and September 2017. Already upon his entry into government in May 2017, the young minister had waited almost four months before yielding his chair to a loyal and become first deputy.

Unlike his colleague Franck Riester (Culture) and the head of government, who had gone into battle by announcing that they would not be mayors, Mr. Darmanin had displayed color as soon as he officially entered the campaign.

"If I am at the top of the list, it is to be mayor," he proclaimed in late January in La Voix du Nord. Already at the time, he boasted of having obtained the green light from President Emmanuel Macron to accumulate a time.

- Eclipsed by The Mayor -

According to several concordant sources, the Elysée as Matignon authorized him to put on the two caps. "They told him banco," says a tenor of the majority.

The head of state seems determined to keep by his side this minister considered very political, who had established himself at the start of the five-year term as one of the heavyweights of the government.

In the municipal elections, where the second round scheduled for June 28 promises to be at least as disastrous as the first for the majority, Gérald Darmanin is one of the few LREM elected officials to have triumphed.

And, faced with the economic and financial crisis following the Covid-19 epidemic, it must prepare the key text of the amending finance bill, debated at the end of June in Parliament.

His municipal streak is also an opportunity for him to regain visibility. In recent weeks, he has indeed seemed to disappear from the radars, overshadowed by the real boss of Bercy, Bruno Le Maire, who has managed to take all the light, even to steal from him the label of "Minister of the daily life of the French", according to the expression of one of his colleagues.

Barely elected, the mayor-minister will also give an interview to the Journal du Dimanche before being invited by the Grand Jury RTL-Le Figaro-LCI.

It remains to be seen whether he will be able to accumulate until the government reshuffle - which could take place in the wake of the second round of municipal elections or in September - or then beyond?

Mayor and Minister, "I think it is not healthy to combine the two in the long term", had seemed to respond in advance the person in January.

A way of signaling to Emmanuel Macron that he could eventually choose to succumb to the temptation of Tourcoing. Unless a large ministry - Social Affairs style with a wider scope is offered to it in the coming weeks ...

"Mr. Darmanin, during this campaign, you knowingly lied to the inhabitants. Despite appearances, you will not really be mayor. Part-time mayor, part-time minister ...", questioned him during the municipal council Rémi Meurin, elected member of the opposition (National Rally).

Gérald Darmanin announced Saturday that, during the cumulation, he would "obviously not" receive his municipal allowances, paid to the Society for the Protection of Animals.

© 2020 AFP