The outgoing Hervé Morin (Les Centristes), supported by the right, won in the second round of the regional elections in Normandy with 44.2% of the vote, ahead of the socialist Mélanie Boulanger, allied to the ecologists (25.9%), according to an estimate.
RN Nicolas Bay came in third place with 20.1% of the vote, ahead of LREM Laurent Bonnaterre (9.8%), according to an Ipsos / Sopra Steria estimate for France Télévisions / Radio France / The Parliamentary Channel.
Minister of Defense and President of the Association of Regions of France
At 59, the one who was Nicolas Sarkozy’s Defense Minister (2007-2010) said in 2014: “Minister, I have already ticked the box of one of the most beautiful ministries there is”. His mocking tone and his apparent casualness had also detonated among the military. The presidential ambition is also over after his failed little tour of 2012. “He lived through difficult times, he matured and found real serenity”, judged in 2015 the MEP and former Minister Jean Arthuis, for whom he is a “Boy of conviction”.
Grandson of a farmer and son of a masonry contractor, Hervé Morin was mayor of Epaignes (Eure) from 1995 to 2016. The former deputy and general councilor of Eure has long campaigned for the reunification of Upper and Lower Normandy, which he has implemented since 2015. From 2017 to 2019, he chaired the Régions de France association and has never deserted the national media.
A separation from François Bayrou in tears
Yet the favorite party, Hervé Morin had failed in the fall of 2014 to take over from Jean-Louis Borloo at the head of the UDI against Jean-Christophe Lagarde, then deputy. Since the summer of 2013, the former minister has reconciled with his former mentor François Bayrou, with whom he shares a passion for horses. At the end of 2007, he had sold in Dubai for several million euros a thoroughbred bought 40,000 euros and has always defended himself from any conflict of interest with his ministerial function at the time.
The separation with Bayrou was made in tears, he has told several times. And he spoke for a long time with nostalgia of the time of the “Bedouins” around Bayrou, between 2002 and 2007, but also of the “Léo gang” around François Léotard whom he advised when he was minister. He left Bayrou the day after the second round which saw Nicolas Sarkozy win the presidential election and created the New Center, a party affiliated with the UDI before leaving the latter in 2017. In the meantime, he renamed his party Les Centristes.
A reputation as a “dilettante”
During the regional campaign of 2015, the left had made a point of reproaching him for his absenteeism at the regional council between 2004 and 2010. And his geographical approximations, after a quiz consisting of placing the Norman towns on a blank map, had made a some buzz on social networks. Since he has been at the head of the region, his detractors have criticized this man, known to be warm and easy to access, for “over-communicating”.
He is well aware of the reputation of “dilettante” of which he is often taxed and has no trouble confessing “not to take oneself seriously” or even his “somewhat crude way of saying things”. He also sticks to his skin this blunder of having told that he had witnessed the Allied landings in 1944 …