DARMANINE. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announces his candidacy for deputy in the 10th district of the North, that of Tourcoing, the city where he was mayor in 2020. Expected to be a minister in the new government, he is therefore launching his legislative campaign in parallel.
During a conference in the North of France this Thursday, April 5, Gérald Darmanin, current Minister of the Interior, announced that he was competing for deputation in the 10th district of the North. It includes part of the city of Tourcoing, of which he was briefly mayor from May to August 2020, leaving his post to focus exclusively on his duties as minister. This announcement comes as Emmanuel Macron’s new government will be unveiled in the coming days.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announces his candidacy in the 10th district of the North, where he was elected deputy in 2012 under the banner of the UMP. Winning 54.88% of the vote at the time against Zina Dahmani of the PS, he sat in the National Assembly until the new elections of 2017, where he did not compete. In fact, from 2017, he became Minister of Action and Public Accounts in the government of Emmanuel Macron. These last five years have been for him the time of rapprochement with LREM, until becoming Minister of the Interior in July 2020.
In April 2022, when a ministerial reshuffle was going to be announced from one day to the next, Gérald Darmanin decided to try his luck again by running in the 10th district of the North. During a press conference in Bousbecque in the North, he declared that this decision had been matured alongside Emmanuel Macron: “After talking about it with the President of the Republic, I decided (…) to be a candidate next June”. To carry out his campaign, he can count on his future deputy, who is none other than the outgoing deputy for the 10th constituency Vincent Ledoux, invested under the LR label in 2017 and today a member of the right-wing pro- Macron “Act”. In 2017, Sophie Taïeb, invested by En Marche!, narrowly missed her place against him with 44.07% of the vote.
The mystery is still whole about the composition of the future government of the newly reelected president. If some will have to pack up, like (probably) the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer or the Minister of the Armies Florence Parly, the Minister of the Interior of Emmanuel Macron since 2020 is approached for this new team. Formerly close to Nicolas Sarkozy, he joined the government of Emmanuel Macron as Minister of Action and Public Accounts from 2017 to 2020, before the consecration: the post of Minister of the Interior in August 2020. Very invested in the presidential campaign of the outgoing president, Gérald Darmanin has become a pillar of the right at LREM. Most sources agree to give him among the lucky few who will remain in office (in fact, the government team being made up of 41 ministers and secretaries, the renewal should be far-reaching).
Gérald Darmanin, from LR to Macron
The current Minister of the Interior has served as a member of the government since 2017 and the election of Emmanuel Macron as President, but he was first Minister of Action and Public Accounts from 2017 to 2020 before to move into the Hôtel de Beauvau. In addition to the various functions he has held for the government, the politician has also invested in his native region, Hauts-de-France. He was appointed regional councilor for Nord-Pas-de-Calais between 2010 and 2014 then sat on the Regional Council of the new Hauts-de-France region from 2016 to 2020, he was even its vice-president during his term of office. by Xavier Bertrand. The list of local mandates exercised by Gérald Darmanin ends at the town hall of Tourcoing as first deputy mayor for three years, before a brief stint as mayor of the city until his appointment to become Minister of the Interior.
Gérald Darmanin joined the right in 1998 with the RPR and evolved within the political family now known as Les Républicains, until 2017 when shortly after the Fillon affair he decided to leave the party. . He then joined Emmanuel Macron’s movement, La République en Marche.
The politician had to endure several controversies such as accusations of rape and harassment or abuse of weakness in 2017 and 2018. The cases notably came back to the fore when he became Minister of the Interior, which earned Gérald Darmanin strong opposition from some feminist activists. Also in 2017, the politician was able to make comments and defend homophobic positions on the issue of same-sex marriage, and affirmed his support for the Manif pour Tous movement. The politician had subsequently reconsidered his remarks, explaining that he regretted them, on the subject of homosexual marriage he had ended up explaining that he preferred the authorization of a civil union.