2023-11-25 23:07:23
– Death of Gérard Collomb, former Minister of the Interior
The former mayor of Lyon Gérard Collomb died Saturday evening at the age of 76.
Published today at 12:07 a.m.
Gérard Collomb in his office as Minister of the Interior.
AFP
The former mayor of Lyon Gérard Collomb, ex-Minister of the Interior in the first Macron government, “passed away peacefully with his family” on Saturday evening at the age of 76, in the words of his wife Caroline, and the death of the Lyon baron sparked a shower of tributes
President Macron and his wife greeted in a press release “a dear friend”, “a mayor who dedicated his exceptional talents of dialogue and imagination to building a city in his image”, a “statesman who embodied the Republican rise and authority. His state of health had deteriorated considerably in recent days and he had been taken care of by the oncology department of Lyon Sud hospital. His death occurred “during a short period of coma,” according to his wife.
Born on June 20, 1947 in Chalon-sur-Saône (Saône-et-Loire), to a father who was a metalworker and CGT trade unionist and a mother who was a housekeeper, Gérard Collomb remained one of the emblematic political figures of the capital des Gaules of which he was mayor from 2001 to 2017 then from 2018 to 2020 after a brief stint at Place Beauvau.
Elected mayor in 2001 with the support of Raymond Barre after two unsuccessful attempts which left him on the benches of the municipal opposition, he left his post to become Minister of the Interior and Minister of State in the government of Édouard Philippe. He was in fact a “support from the start” and an “architect of the victory” won in 2017 by Emmanuel Macron, as the Head of State recalled in his message on Saturday. The Senate paid tribute to him on Saturday evening by observing a moment of contemplation.
“Faithful among the faithful”
Weakened politically by the Benalla affair, “difficult to live with”, according to him, this “faithful among the faithful” had resigned with a bang in October 2018 to resume his functions in Lyon which he had ceded to two of his lieutenants. These lieutenants go into dissidence, his camp is torn apart and he himself gives in to anger – he has never tolerated emancipation. “It took me twenty years to conquer this city, twenty years to transform it, we can’t leave it like that,” he said in 2020 during an electoral campaign marked by his alliance with the right between the two rounds.
At odds with Macronie whose “lack of humility” he denounces, criticized on the left where he is accused of right-wing drift for his anti-terrorism law and his asylum/immigration bill, he finally finds himself pushed back to the benches of the municipal opposition by the Greens who won both the town hall and the metropolis, the real seat of power in Lyon. The Lyon baron had disappeared from the local political scene since he himself announced his stomach cancer on his X account (formerly Twitter) on September 16, 2022, attracting support and encouragement from the Lyon political sphere.
At the head of Lyon, this former associate professor of classics transformed the city with the development of the banks of the Rhône, the quays of the Saône, the construction of the eco-district of La Confluence, located to the south of the city . The Lyonnais also owe him the Musée des Confluences and the city’s “Skyline” with the Incity and Oxygène towers. But also Les Nuits Sonores, an essential musical festival on the electronic scene as well as the illuminations of the traditional Festival of Lights.
He was elected deputy for Rhône (1981-88) at the time of the pink wave led by François Mitterrand. He was also mayor of the 9th arrondissement of Lyon (1995-2001), regional councilor (1992-1999), senator (1999-2017, one month in 2018) and first president of the Lyon Metropolis (2015-2017). Married since 2001 to his wife Caroline, he leaves five children including three from two previous unions.
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