In the local press photo, he poses in jeans and a green sweater alongside an opposition municipal councilor and a young sales assistant in front of a simple pavilion.
Here is the first campaign photo of candidate Stéphane Bern.
The host of France Télévisions has decided to embark on the partial municipal elections which will take place next month in his new stronghold of Thiron-Gardais (Eure-et-Loir).
“The mayor has just resigned, three advisors are missing and I was asked to join the team,” Stéphane Bern confided to Le Parisien this Sunday.
We vote on March 17 and there will only be one round, I think.
There is little at stake because there is only one list.
As for being mayor, we'll see, it's not my ambition but I won't deny myself anything if necessary, because I'm a peacemaker.
But my goal is to help my community.
»
Ex-municipal elected official in Paris - from 1999 to 2001, he was elected without a label on the RPR list - the Mr. Heritage of the public service had loudly announced, in 2021, that he was leaving the capital to move full time into his field from Thiron-Gardais, in Perche.
A town where he acquired the former royal and military college in 2013, which he saved from ruin.
And where he plans to “be buried” when he dies, he recently confided to Gala magazine.
“I’m not a Sunday dweller”
On his motivations for running for municipal elections, Stéphane Bern, 60, confided to our colleagues at the Republican Echo his wish to see his new home “labelled a small city of character”.
“It’s not a political choice,” he insists to Le Parisien.
I have been living full-time in this village of less than 1,000 inhabitants for three years.
I'm not a Sunday dweller.
At some point you have to get involved.
I'm already at all the village festivals, I give out prizes, cups, I express myself even though I have no title, he laughs.
So much the better if my name can help.
»
In this upcoming municipal election, the host is joining forces in particular with the president of the association for the restoration and cultural activities of the Thiron-Gardais abbey.
“If I am elected, I will continue to defend the heritage of the municipality which is very indebted... We must straighten out the finances and fight to defend the territorial network, rurality, insists the host of Europe 1. I have the The impression that, sometimes, people in Paris do not understand the issues of rurality at all.
Many farmers are having difficulties, we need to be with them.
»
“Rachida Dati, I love her”
In the event of an election, Stéphane Bern is already imagining a visit from Rachida Dati, the new Minister of Culture.
“We have to raise funds and I know how to do this by knocking on ministers’ doors!
And I happily invite Rachida Dati to come to Perche.
I love it.
She has drive, ambition, she has a knack for politics, she's a hard worker.
She has a career that I admire.
As someone from the countryside, she's the only one who has words for rural culture.
Here in my village, we organized a concert by Laurent Voulzy and Natasha St-Pier and no one ever talks about it!
Culture in rural areas exists.
»
Originally from Lyon, then adopted from Paris, it was therefore in Thiron-Gardais that he set up his “real house”, as he told us in July 2020 while showing us around the place.
A restored site, attached to a 12th century abbey church, which it regularly opens to visitors, particularly for school groups in the area.
Read alsoAt Stéphane Bern in his royal college: “Here, I take back the reins of my life”
He discovered this village in Perche quite by chance.
“I didn't know the region,” he told us in 2020. One day, it was the president of the departmental council who called me and said:
You like
heritage
, I have something for you
.
I arrived, it was a ruin.
But with crazy charm.
I had a crush.
»
Why not buy a more upscale residence?
“I didn’t have the fantasy of being a squire,” he said.
If I had been offered a real castle, I would not have done it.
I would have had the impression of aping the crowned heads I have always been around (…).
I spend my time telling people:
We must preserve our heritage
.
It was an opportunity to start with myself.
Thiron-Gardais has also become a sort of laboratory.
I wanted to learn what it was like to restore a listed monument.
»