It was the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron who announced it on X. Jean-Claude Gaudin, the historic mayor of Marseille for twenty-five years, is dead.
Jean-Claude Gaudin died this Monday in his second home in Saint-Zacharie (Var) at the age of 84, confirms France Bleu Provence. The man who was also a minister, president of the Region, of the Metropolis and vice-president of the Senate, had devoted his life to politics.
“From his city, his passion, he had the accent, the fever, the fraternity,” wrote Emmanuel Macron on . I think of his loved ones and the people of Marseille. »
He “loved Marseille more than anything”
Former senator, deputy and minister of regional planning, the city and integration under Jacques Chirac between 1995 and 1997, Jean-Claude Gaudin was mainly mayor of the Republicans of Marseille, where he was born, 1995 to 2020 .
LR president Eric Ciotti immediately paid tribute to him on X, saluting a man who “loved Marseille more than anything”. “I liked his cheekiness. I admired his courage. I listened to his advice. I am proud to have worked alongside him. My pain is immense, I lose a friend,” he added.
“Jean-Claude Gaudin was the voice and face of Marseille. For decades he was passionately political, a good-natured and colorful mix of Christian democracy and liberalism,” the president of MoDem François Bayrou reacted on X.