Strasbourg (AFP)
An emergency doctor by training, the outgoing president (LR) of the Grand Est region, Jean Rottner, approaches the regions with a reinforced stature at the end of the health crisis, which "deeply marked" him.
"I am above all a doctor, a doctor who, by the chances of life, has been in politics", assures AFP the man who worked in the emergency room in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin) for more than 10 years, before putting away the white coat in 2008 to devote himself to his activities as an elected official.
"Very attached" to his former service, Dr Rottner, 54, returned to lend him a hand in 2019, when the hospital was going through an internal crisis, then in 2020, when the city became one of the first French clusters of Covid-19.
"I'm not kidding myself, when he did that, he also thought about the image that it sent of him," agrees Marc Noizet, the current head of the service.
"But he came to do a job, not pretend, shake hands and leave," he says gratefully.
Privileged observer of the crisis, the president of the region quickly became a whistleblower, warning the Elysee of hospital tension, struggling to recover masks and tests or launching a support fund for companies, long before the national recovery plan.
"The coronavirus has enabled it to fill a notoriety deficit, it is obvious", analyzes Sébastien Michon, sociologist and research director at the CNRS, in Strasbourg.
"It is also linked to his personal career: an emergency physician by profession, he was legitimate to speak".
"I frequented death during my professional life, but never as much as during this crisis", confides the ex-boss of Samu.
"So I think it was my duty to raise my voice," as in January, when he denounced the "state scandal" of the slowness of the vaccination campaign.
- Combine and strategy -
It was in 2001 that he launched himself and became an opposition municipal councilor in Mulhouse, a city led by the socialist Jean-Marie Bockel.
In 2007, the election of Nicolas Sarkozy was a springboard: the new president brought Bockel into the government in the name of "openness".
Dismissal of the elevator in 2008, Bockel integrated Rottner to his list for the municipal ones then gave up his chair of mayor in 2010.
A "scheme" denounced by the former deputy (LR) of Mulhouse (2002-2017) Arlette Grosskost, which makes him say that Jean Rottner, his former deputy, "has no backbone".
"He would never have gone alone against the voters," said this Chiraquienne who wanted to beat Bockel "at the ballot box".
Rebelote in 2017, at the Regional Council: when the president (LR) Philippe Richert resigns for a new team to "make itself known", Jean Rottner obtains the support of his group against Valérie Debord, national spokesperson for the Republicans, and picks up the timpani.
In 20 years of political career, it is therefore only the second time that he has approached an election as head of the list, after the 2014 municipal elections in Mulhouse, where he was already outgoing mayor.
"He's a good strategist," says Sébastien Michon.
"He is someone who knows how to position himself well, how to position himself".
- "Alsatian Centrism" -
Its ideological position, on the other hand, still earns it fierce enmities.
In a region whose consistency remains regularly debated, some do not forgive this former fervent defender of Alsace for having become the figurehead of the Grand Est.
"I am frankly surprised that we can change position like that. He did it, he has his conscience for him", plague the senator related to the LR group André Reichardt, former president of the Regional Council of Alsace (2009 -2010), which accuses him of a "desire to standardize the territories".
Jean Rottner claims to be part of the tradition of "Alsatian centrism".
Friend of François Baroin, he says he is close to Renaud Muselier, the president (LR) of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, or of the socialist Carole Delga (Occitanie), and recognizes "disagreements with Laurent Wauquiez" ( LR, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes).
A time considered "Macron-compatible", it ensures that it does not nurture national ambitions.
"I like the work I do. When I see certain ministers, I wonder about their degree of freedom," he explains, but without completely closing the door.
"If one day the phone rings, it will be a kind of recognition ...".
© 2021 AFP