“Great servant of the state”, in the “Pantheon of northern socialists” and “authentic European social democrat”: former baron PS Michel Delebarre, seven times minister and mayor of Dunkirk for 25 years, died Saturday in Lille at 75, hailed by a shower of tributes.
“Michel Delebarre left us this morning”, he “will have carried out many projects which still mark our daily lives”, announced the mayor of Dunkirk, Patrice Vergriete on his Facebook account.
“During his long career, which led him to become Minister of the Republic, he was able to forge a bond of trust and mutual esteem with the people of Dunkirk. In his memory, the flags of Dunkirk will be lowered to half-mast” , added the various left city councilor, former assistant to Mr. Delebarre, from whom he had stolen the city in 2014.
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 “good living” 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, as Minister and local elected representative, carried the values of socialism with conviction”.
– “Inexhaustible 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.
He will chain six other ministerial portfolios until 1993 (Social Affairs and Employment, Transport, Equipment or the first Ministry of the City, under Michel Rocard).
Member of Parliament for a dozen years, and 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.
This “great servant of the state” and “fierce decentralizer”, “combined his eminent skills with an inexhaustible human warmth”, reacted François Hollande, hailing on Twitter an “authentic European social democrat”.
– “Propensity to accumulate” –
This geography graduate had been indicted in January 1997 in the Élysée wiretapping affair, as Pierre Mauroy’s chief of staff and as such responsible for the interministerial control group (GIC), responsible for “interceptions of security”.
He had admitted in this context to having authorized certain illegal tapping. Convicted in 2005, he was released from sentence.
His opponents in Dunkirk had also pointed out during his defeat in 2014 the “wear and tear of power” of this essential political leader, reproaching him for his “propensity to combine various mandates and functions” and to “control everything”.
Michel Delebarre then gradually withdrew from public life, stepping aside in 2017 at the end of his senatorial mandate.
Mr. Delebarre “has had several lives, but always with one ambition, to defend his Region and its inhabitants”, reacted the LR president 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 and our coastline”, also noted the ex-LR mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart.
For the former Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls, this political figure “combined great qualities: service to the State, local roots (…) left-wing reformism”.