Delanoe, Bertrand

▪ 2002

      Bertrand Delanoë entered the history books when on March 18, 2001, he became the first Socialist mayor of Paris since 1871. On a shorter time scale, Delanoë's victory was also noteworthy for having ended nearly a quarter of a century of domination of the city by the former mayor, French Pres. Jacques Chirac, and his neo-Gaullist party, the Rally for the Republic (RPR).

      That domination—and the way it finally crumbled into scandals of corruption and internecine warfare among Chirac's political heirs—eventually contributed heavily to Delanoë's victory. Delanoë's avowed homosexuality proved to be a nonissue, and his low-key style and persistence eventually came to be preferred by Parisians to the higher-profile Socialist rivals who at several points looked certain to eclipse him. He was helped mightily by the split in the RPR ranks between Philippe Séguin, the official RPR candidate, who polled 25.7% of the vote in the March 11 first round of balloting, and Jean Tiberi, the incumbent RPR mayor, who had split with his party but still scored 13.9%. Had these two candidates combined, they would have surpassed Delanoë's 31.4%. Delanoë, however, was able to secure backing from the Greens, who made a strong showing, and he won fairly easily in the final round of voting on March 18.

      Delanoë was born on May 30, 1950, in Tunis, Tun. After his early years in North Africa, he went to France and finished his education in Toulouse. He plunged into politics, becoming secretary of the Socialist Federation of Aveyron département at the age of 23. His potential was spotted by François Mitterrand, the Socialist Party leader, and he rose fast, becoming a Paris city councillor. Delanoë was elected a deputy to the National Assembly in 1981, and in 1983 he became head of the Socialist Party's national federations. At 33 he was effectively number three in the ruling Socialist Party.

      In 1986 Delanoë lost his National Assembly seat, though he kept his seat on the Paris city council. He founded a public relations business, mainly on behalf of institutional clients, including teacher and student associations. He returned to prominence when he became leader of the Socialist group on the city council in 1993, and he led it into the 1995 election with modest success, taking 6 of the 20 arrondissements from the right. That same year saw Chirac end his 18 years as mayor of Paris when he became president. The system of government that Chirac had installed in Paris came under growing criticism and judicial investigation for possible “kickbacks.” In a campaign manifesto, Delanoë complained that during Chirac's long time as mayor, he had “progressively transformed the capital into an island outside the law.”

      After becoming mayor in March, Delanoë's had his biggest and most controversial impact in 2001 on the city's traffic system. Elected with Green support, he embarked on a series of controversial measures to discriminate against cars in favour of other forms of transport. These included closing the Seine riverbank motorway from mid-July to mid-August, adding new bus lanes on main boulevards, and establishing studies on the reintroduction of trams and more use of the Seine to carry cargo.

David Buchan

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