Lyon (AFP)

Grégory Doucet is unknown to the general public, has never been elected in his life and is not from Lyon. But that did not stop this humanitarian, convinced environmentalist, from taking Lyon from the Collomb barony.

He will now have to lead a breakup program in the third city of France, historically directed in the center.

"Gregory is a manager and an activist. He has the capacity to implement the major environmental issues", sweeps Eric Piolle, the mayor of Grenoble, which until now was the only big city run by environmentalists.

The future mayor has always had a civic and committed spirit. "As a teenager already, I wrote a letter to the mayor to tell him that the city was disfigured by billboards," he told AFP.

Son of a father who is an executive in the petroleum industry and of a mother secretary in a bank, he grew up in the Paris region and admitted having "tried early to convince his parents" of his convictions. Student, he chairs Genepi, an association in which students worked in prison.

But his political commitment within EELV will only come in 2007. And it is only in 2017 that he will take local responsibilities by becoming the party secretary in the Rhône. A novice in politics then.

Because at 46, Grégory Doucet has above all a solid executive career in humanitarian work behind him. Trained at the Rouen business school, he started working at Adie, a microcredit specialist, then at Inter Aide where he went on long missions abroad.

"In Manila, I discovered an unbearable misery. I remember a slum built on a mountain of rubbish. They used it as raw material and, one day, there was a collapse".

In 2009, he left Ile-de-France for Lyon and the headquarters of Handicap International (HI) where he became responsible for operations in West Africa. Or manage 500 people on the ground and crises like Ebola.

Faced with emergencies, "he reacts with great calm", insists Mylène Pépin, his assistant at HI who hires a professional "close to the field", who "knows how to surround himself" and "trusts, delegates".

Within the NGO, he is known as the green wolf. Always by bike, launching "bike trips" to sign petitions or set up recycling, composting facilities.

- "Mentally prepared" -

Outside this small milieu, Grégory Doucet remains a stranger, even within his own party. He is one of those personalities from civil society who have had a meteoric political career, like Michèle Rubirola in Marseille.

During the campaign, this tall, well-heeled brown goat swapped his casual outfits for a more chic suit without a tie. "He prepared himself mentally, in his project, in the way he wanted to govern," says Eric Piolle.

This bachelor, who has alternate custody of his three sons, has lost nothing of his openness, of his taste for human contact, assures Patrice Ruiton, the farmer who supplies him with his vegetables in Amap every week.

He crisscrossed the markets with a dark green mask of vigor on his face.

If he has not (yet) identified public enemies, he is not spared on social networks. "Escrolo", "Khmer Vert", "candidate of watermelon sores" (green on the outside and red on the inside), the names of birds are fused and its alliance with the United Left and LFI in the second round does not pass in some.

The economic circles of the 2nd largest city in France with a rich industrial history do not hide their concerns. Especially since the metropolis could also pass into the hands of Bruno Bernard, another ecologist with an atypical profile of business manager.

But for Grégory Doucet, Lyon is still thought of "as in the 20th century".

Convinced that "political ecology is the ideology of the 21st century", he wants to "take rapid action" to respond to the climate emergency, reduce the size of the car, fight air pollution. .

He wants a city that is 100% walkable and cycling, a city where children can live, meals in the canteen 100% organic and with 50% local products. It remains to give concrete and quantified details to apply its promises.

© 2020 AFP