The current socialist mayor of Strasbourg, Roland Ries, announced this Saturday February 15 his support for the municipal elections to the candidate LREM, Alain Fontanel, to the detriment of the socialist candidacy of the former minister Catherine Trautmann.
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" Alain Fontanel seems to me to be in the best position to take over from me ," Roland Ries told the Latest News from Alsace (DNA), after having maintained the suspense until the last municipal council.
“ Difficult, the function requires skill, temperance without leading to non-decision. And then, Alain is a friend and he is my first assistant, "he added, paying tribute to his work as an assistant since 2008.
He just regretted, in his interview with DNA, that the one he already had for a time presented as his dolphin, before Alain Fontanel left the PS in 2017 to support Emmanuel Macron, " is too subservient to La République en Marche ".
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A new head of list
In October, Roland Ries was one of 75 elected and former elected signatories of a " manifesto " calling for the creation of a " leftist pole in the majority " government. The first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure had " drawn (é) the conclusion that he is no longer a member of the PS ".
The one who will have made three non-consecutive mandates of mayor did not mention Saturday the new head of the PS list in Strasbourg, Catherine Trautmann, who had however left him the chair of mayor of Strasbourg in 1997 when she became minister of Jospin government.
Mrs. Trautmann, until then number 2, was propelled candidate PS last week after the renunciation of the initial candidate Mathieu Cahn, who finally withdrew completely from the list Wednesday at the request of the national direction of the PS for “ behaviors at odds with her feminist values .
In Strasbourg, a city that voted 28% for the LREM list in the European elections and 21% for the environmental list, Alain Fontanel (LREM) and Jeanne Barseghian (Greens) seem to be racing the municipal elections for the time being. .