Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin will resign from his mandate as mayor of Tourcoing (North) on Saturday. “To be Minister of the Interior is to be a full-time minister. But my heart remains in Tourcoing: I am still elected from our city and I will become mayor again as soon as my national mission is over. #Tourcoing ”, wrote on Twitter Gérald Darmanin.
To be Minister of the Interior is to be a full-time minister. But my heart remains in Tourcoing: I am still elected from our city and I will become Mayor again as soon as my national mission is over. #Tourcoing
- Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) August 24, 2020His resignation will be submitted on Saturday after the celebration of his second marriage in town hall, said his entourage to AFP, confirming information from Closer magazine.
His successor will be elected during a city council in September, the exact date of which has not yet been set, according to the same source. The minister will continue to sit on the city council and the choice of the future mayor has not yet been decided, it was specified.
Gérald Darmanin, re-elected high with 60.9% of the votes in the first round of municipal elections on March 15, against a background of record abstention, indicated at the end of July that the future mayor of Tourcoing would be known "at the end of August", after having initially issued the wish for an appointment at "end of July".
According to his cabinet interviewed at the end of July, this postponement of one month was due to “meetings canceled twice” due to “emergencies”, in particular in connection with the fire at Nantes cathedral, without further comment.
"If I'm at the top of the list, it's to be mayor"
According to the case law established by Lionel Jospin in 1997, a minister cannot lead a local executive. Certainly, this is an unwritten rule - which has suffered exceptions, on the left as well as on the right (Le Drian, Sarkozy ...) - but the former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe had sanctified it in September 2019.
Gérald Darmanin had again girded the tricolor scarf on May 23, finding a seat occupied between March 2014, when the young elected then stamped UMP had delighted the city to the PS, and September 2017.
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When he entered government in 2017, the minister, now LREM, had waited four months before giving up his chair to a faithful and becoming first deputy. "If I am at the top of the list, it is to be mayor" of Tourcoing, he declared however at the end of January in La Voix du Nord.
