The mayor of Dunkirk, Patrice Vergriete, announced his death in the morning on Facebook.
He "will have carried out many projects which still mark our daily lives", and "know how to weave a bond of trust and mutual esteem with the Dunkirks", noted the city councilor various left, former assistant to Mr. Delebarre, to whom he delighted the city in 2014. "In his memory, the flags of Dunkirk will be lowered."
Michel Delebarre had been welcomed in an Ehpad in Lille for several months, "very weakened" in particular by severe diabetes, PS senator from the North, Patrick Kanner, told AFP.
This "bon vivant" who had "personified Dunkirk", "is part of the pantheon of northern socialists", "faithful to the end", he greeted.
The PS mayor of Lille Martine Aubry for her part paid tribute on Twitter to a "great figure of the left in the North, who (...) carried the values of socialism with conviction".
"Human warmth"
Senator for the North from 2011 to 2017 after a long career in the National Assembly and seven ministerial portfolios under François Mitterrand, Michel Delebarre entered politics alongside Pierre Mauroy.
Born in Bailleul (Nord) on April 27, 1946, he became chief of staff to the former mayor of Lille, whom he followed to Matignon, before being appointed Minister of Labor in 1984 on the arrival of Laurent Fabius as Premier minister.
This hard worker will chain six other ministerial portfolios until 1993 (Social Affairs and Employment, Transport, Equipment or the first Ministry of the City, under Michel Rocard).
President of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Regional Council from 1998 to 2001, he also assumed responsibilities within the European Union, as President of the European Socialist Party from 2003 to 2006, and of the Committee of the Regions.
The town hall of Paris hailed in a press release "this great servant of the State and of his fellow citizens" who has "always defended the general interest".
François Hollande (g), then President of the Republic, and French Senator Michel Delebarre in Dunkirk, July 23, 2013 DENIS CHARLET POOL/AFP/Archives
This "fierce decentralizer", "combined his eminent skills with an inexhaustible human warmth", reacted François Hollande, hailing on Twitter an "authentic European social democrat".
"France, the North and Dunkirk are losing a servant" tweeted the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, expressing his "sadness".
"Propensity to accumulate"
A graduate in geography, Michel Delebarre had been indicted in January 1997 in the Élysée wiretapping affair, as director of cabinet to Pierre Mauroy and as such responsible for the interministerial control group (GIC), responsible for "security interceptions".
He had admitted in this context to having authorized certain illegal tapping.
Convicted in 2005, he was released from sentence.
His opponents in Dunkirk also pointed out during his defeat in 2014 the "wear and tear of power" of this essential political leader and his "propensity to combine various mandates and functions" and to "control everything".
Michel Delebarre, then mayor of Dunkirk, in Copenhagen, March 23, 2012 TORKIL ADSERSEN SCANPIX DENMARK/AFP/Archives
"Maybe power made me a little autistic," he conceded in 2015 on France 3, acknowledging that he "perhaps abused" the accumulation of functions.
He had gradually withdrawn from public life, erasing himself completely in 2017 when he left the Senate.
On the right too, tribute was paid to him: Mr. Delebarre "had several lives, but always with an ambition, to defend his region and its inhabitants", reacted the president LR of the Hauts-de-France region Xavier Bertrand.
"Despite our differences, we have always known how to work together in the interest of our two cities", noted the ex-LR mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart.
"The North will remember him," tweeted RN deputy Sébastien Chenu, welcoming "the commitment of a man for so many years in the service of the community".
According to the entourage of the deceased, who leaves his wife and a daughter, the funeral will take place on Friday in the Saint-Eloi church in Dunkirk.
© 2022 AFP