Strasbourg (AFP)

The new municipal majority of the ecologist Jeanne Barseghian, who must be formally elected mayor of Strasbourg Saturday at 6 p.m., will be joined by the group of her former competitor, the socialist Catherine Trautmann, announced on Saturday the two women, who had not failed to ally between the two rounds.

"I (the) thank you for having accepted that we can together resume the dialogue on new bases", declared, alongside Mrs. Trautmann, Jeanne Barseghian, evoking a "will to work together for a collegial governance of the majority" .

"We have chosen to enter a majority intergroup, we maintain our unity and our identity there," said Catherine Trautmann, whose list came third in the second round of the election.

"From the moment we have a certain number of convergences, we must opt ​​for the chance that can represent a joint work", she added, while specifying that her group did not want to be a group of 'backup but truly a partner group ".

Two members of his group will join the municipal executive, one as assistant and the other as delegated councilor. Their names have not been released, but the former mayor of Strasbourg and former Minister of Culture has ruled out becoming an assistant herself.

Jeanne Barseghian refused the term "tandem" at the head of Strasbourg. "We are a collective, we will work in collegiality", with an effort put on "transversality to avoid that everyone works in his corner", she promised.

The 39-year-old EELV candidate obtained 41.71% of the votes in the second round, well ahead of the LREM candidate, Alain Fontanel, who had formed an alliance between two rounds with LR and obtained 34.96% of the votes. Arriving third as in the first round, Catherine Trautmann obtained 23.33% of the vote.

The installation council of the new Strasbourg municipality is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. Jeanne Barseghian must be formally elected there and intends to declare "the state of climatic emergency" for the city of Strasbourg, as also wants to do the new ecological mayor of Bordeaux Pierre Hurmic.

"It will be a founding act at the start of the mandate," said Jeanne Barseghian, referring to "conditioning all (the) public policies to this emergency" with the deployment of "massive public and private resources".

The new mayor will also introduce her team of "twenty assistants".

© 2020 AFP