Several times minister between 1984 and 1993, the socialist Michel Delebarre died this Saturday, at the age of 75, reports La Voix du Nord. Mayor of Dunkirk for more than 25 years, until 2014, Michel Delebarre had been minister seven times, in the Fabius, Rocard, Cresson and Bérégovoy governments. He had also been a deputy and senator for the North, where he had become a major political monument.
“Michel Delebarre left us this morning”, confirmed the mayor of Dunkirk, Patrice Vergriete on his Facebook account “Michel Delebarre will have carried out many projects which still mark our daily lives”, he continued, announcing the half-masting flags in Dunkirk in his homage.
François Hollande’s tribute
“Michel Delebarre was a great servant of the state and a fierce decentralizer, remembered François Hollande on Twitter. He combined his eminent skills with an inexhaustible human warmth. A socialist from the north, he was an authentic European social democrat. Also on Twitter, the mayor of Lille Martine Aubry hailed a “great figure of the left in the North, who, as minister and local elected representative, carried the values of socialism with conviction”.
Michel Delebarre died in Lille, where he had been hosted in an Ehpad for several months, “very weakened” in particular by severe diabetes, said PS senator from the North, Patrick Kanner.
A long political career
Former senator in the North after a long career in the National Assembly and several ministerial posts under François Mitterrand, Michel Delebarre cut his teeth in politics alongside Pierre Mauroy. Born in Bailleul on April 27, 1946, he entered politics alongside Pierre Mauroy, for whom he was chief of staff at the town hall of Lille and then at Matignon, before being appointed Minister of Labor in 1984 at the arrival of Laurent Fabius as Prime Minister.
Mayor of Dunkirk from 1989 to 2014, he was a deputy for twelve years, and president of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais regional council from 1998 to 2001. He also had responsibilities within the European Union, as President of the Committee of the Regions, a consultative body bringing together the territorial authorities of the European Union, between 2006 and 2008.
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 “. The former minister had admitted in this context to having authorized certain illegal tapping. He was convicted in 2005 but released from the sentence.