Martine Aubry announces to resign from the town hall of Lille this Thursday, March 6, after spending 24 years at its head and only one year from the next municipal elections. A calendar that is not due to chance.
“I think it’s high time to give way to a new generation.” Martine Aubry has decided to bow out as mayor of Lille after spending 24 years at the head of the European Metropolis of Lille (MEL) and 30 years on the municipal council. It is in the columns of World That the inseparable socialist of the Northern Prefecture announced her resignation just a few months before the end of her fourth term: “I decided to leave a year before the 2026 municipal elections”. Martine Aubry plans to resign in mid-March.
A point that can surprise: why advance your departure just a year from the next elections? The 74 -year -old socialist elected representative considers to have made her part and have completed all the commitments she had made for Lille. “The city is doing well. The commitments that had been made to Lille are either made or in the process of being. I leave the keys to a city that is both transformed and well managed,” she said in The world.
But the feeling of fulfillment is not the only explanation for the resignation of the mayor of Lille who had succeeded Pierre Mauroy in 2001. Behind this decision also hides a political strategy. Martine Aubry is preparing her succession and she has already appointed her foal: “I hope that the municipal council Élise Maire the first deputy, Arnaud Deslandes. He knows the city very well and has a good vision for the future”. Member of the majority and supported by the mayor herself, the elected socialist takes advantage of an unparalleled springboard here and the councilor knows it: “I am convinced that, after a year, the Lille will want to keep it as mayor.”
A guaranteed succession and a designated foal
Martine Aubry was not satisfied with her interview in the press to announce her resignation, she formalized the thing during a press conference in front of the Lille. “We thought about the best device for Lille,” she promised, explaining that after accepting her resignation by the prefect, “an extraordinary municipal council could be held on March 21” to elect his successor. And there again she recalled her preference for the first assistant to the town hall of Lille, Arnaud Deslandes.
The elected socialise should, unless surprised, confirm this candidacy supported by the one who has reigned over Lille for almost 25 years. “I am available to the collective,” he said on the set of BFM Lille Last October without officially candidate. “Elected officials will choose. We must first think of the projects and the city that we want to build after Martine Aubry. […] Take the time to work on the fund before the form, think of ideas before the Egos, “he added that there was” no emergency “and that” the candidate’s choice will come in his time “.
Now that his name has been advanced, the time for the choice of a candidate seems to be closer, a year from the municipal elections. Especially since Arnaud Deslandes was appointed by Martine Aubry, and that the same assured in October that the socialist councilor “will obviously and legitimately have his opinion to be given” on his successor. Here he is all designated, but not yet elected.
Aubry does not take his political retirement
If Martine Aubry announces her resignation from the town hall of Lille, she ensures that she does not take her political retirement. “I still have energy and a lot of ideas for Lille,” she said in The world. “I do not want any function, but I want to continue to think with others and express myself whenever it is useful, including within my party”, on the scale of the municipality or national policy. “I wish to continue working with the left and the PS. (…) The threat of the extreme right requires us to act: the French are fed up, we want stability,” added the elected Lille during the press conference in her city. Moreover, if she leaves the town hall, the politician does not leave Lille, however, she plans to stay “to live in Lille” with its residents “warm and united”.