Anne Hidalgo on the bench of the France team? That Didier Deschamps be reassured, the mayor of Paris is not seeking his place as coach of the Blues but the presidency of the Republic (a position equally exposed). No, the candidate invested by the PS says she is surrounded by “the French team of mayors” to lead her to the Elysee Palace. But who makes up this socialist dream team?
Johanna Rolland, campaign manager
It is one of the leaders of the new generation of the PS who directs the campaign of Anne Hidalgo. Johanna Rolland, 42, already has a solid experience as a local elected official since she began her second term at the head of the town hall of Nantes and the sixth metropolis in France. Like Hidalgo after Delanoë, she revealed herself to the general public by taking over from an essential mayor (Jean-Marc Ayrault), while imposing her own partition, that of “social ecology”. A credo that does not prevent it from regularly scrapping with its environmental allies. Coveted by Emmanuel Macron to occupy a large ministry, this hard worker attached to her “convictions” recently resigned from the presidency of the influential association of elected officials France Urbaine in order to support Hidalgo. “We know where we are going. The only thing that interests us is the finish line, ”she has repeated since sweeping the polls.
Nathalie Appéré, the housing specialist
She was one of the 30 mayors of Brittany who publicly expressed their support for Anne Hidalgo’s candidacy. Mayor of Rennes since 2014, Nathalie Appéré does not hide her desires to participate in the presidential campaign. Since the formalization of the candidacy of Anne Hidalgo, the socialist has notably brought her vision of housing policy, habitat and the construction of the city, for which her city is often cited as a reference. Appointed president of the National Housing Agency in 2015, she left her post in 2020 being greeted by the Minister of Housing Julien Denormandie, for her “exceptional” record. Aged 46, Nathalie Appéré is married and the mother of two children. Native of Morbihan, she arrived in Rennes to study at the Institute of Political Studies, before joining the team of Edmond Hervé, mayor of Rennes for more than thirty years.
Boris Vallaud, the coordinator
The member of the Landes has carved out a real place in the socialist world in a few years. In 2014, he succeeded a certain Emmanuel Macron as Deputy Secretary General of the Elysee Palace. Even if he serves under Holland, he is entitled to benevolence the left wing of the PS: Henri Emmanuelli, who knew him during a passage in the Landes of this high official, takes him under his wing and offers him his succession to the deputation in 2017. Boris Vallaud, who highlights some old Landes origins, does not keep the parachute label for long: he wins an internal primary against a local candidate and emerges victorious from a Homeric battle in the legislative elections in full macronist wave. In 2020, he completes his establishment by himself switching a right-wing canton to the departmental ones. In the Assembly, he was quickly noticed in the small group of surviving Socialists: very active and very clever, it was he who was behind the commission of inquiry into the Benalla affair. Paris Match said of him in May 2021 that he was “angry with no one”, both in the PS and among the Communists and even the rebels. His place as coordinator of the “French team of mayors” seems almost logical.
Carole Delga, Ideas in common
Some observers of political life lent him ambitions from 2022. It will not be for this time. At just 50 years old, Carole Delga, the best re-elected regional president in France last June, sided with the mayor of Paris, “a good candidate for the presidency of the Republic, the best placed”. From this summer, the new president of the Regions of France, took the head of the platform Ideas in common, launched by the candidate. A concept already tested during its own campaign through “l’Occitanie en commun”. “It has made it possible to bring together people from civil society widely, well beyond just partisan organizations, and in particular citizens. She proposed to the candidate to work across the country on the same architecture, ”explains Carole Delga’s entourage, who had not made an alliance with environmentalists in the second round of regional meetings. At the end of October, she was appointed spokesperson for the campaign “responsible for territorial animation”. She will have to set up “Hidalgo 2022” departmental committees, essential fieldwork to get the socialist candidate out of her image as mayor of Paris.
Mathieu Klein, in charge of the presidential program
Mathieu Klein, the mayor of Nancy, has politics in his veins. He was active in the PS from the age of 16 and, in the 1990s, became involved in the fight against HIV / AIDS and homophobia. He rubbed shoulders with electoral politics in the 2000s: he sat on the general council of Meurthe-et-Moselle in 2004, he took the lead in 2014. In Nancy, he and the PS broke their teeth several times, legislative and municipal. Yet it is he who will achieve the historic shift of the town hall to the left: Nancy is the only large city torn off by the PS on the right in 2020. Another symbol: Mathieu Klein is the only mayor of a city of 100,000 inhabitants in Openly homosexual France. He had also displayed the fact that he was married and father of three children in his electoral propaganda during the municipal elections. He is now in charge of the presidential program in the socialist team.
Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the environment spokesperson
He is 44 years old but Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol still places himself in the “new generation”, which is to say if the renewal of the Socialist Party is not easy. Mayor of Rouen, he was also the youngest regional president of France, in Haute-Normandie, in 2013. The electoral career of this scientist who went through the private sector before arriving in politics in 2008 was not without pitfalls. In 2015, Mayer-Rossignol is the head of the list of the left in reunified Normandy but is narrowly beaten. In 2020, PS candidate for mayor of Rouen, already socialist, he is however not favorite: six months after the accident at the Lubrizol factory, EELV is on the go and the polls all give the green list in head. Mayer-Rossignol reverses the forecasts and finally becomes mayor of the Norman capital. It is perhaps also this symbol that comes to bring Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol to the campaign of Anne Hidalgo. In particular, he will be the spokesperson on environmental issues.
Cédric Van Styvendael, the facilitator
First candidacy and first electoral victory. Cédric Van Styvendael, aka “CVS”, won, at 46, the town hall of Villeurbanne, in July 2020. His reputation? A man of “dialogue”, “frank” and “empathetic”, whisper his collaborators. This native of Lyon grew up in Chambéry where his father ran a hostel for young workers. However, it was in Paris that he began his professional career by developing scouting in working-class neighborhoods. An activity that he himself practiced in his youth and which allowed him to meet his wife, a teacher with disabled children. Catholic and father of 4 children, “CVS” then returned to his land in 2009 to become “by conviction” consultant and then regional director of the HLM office in Villeurbanne. Through this, he got to know Jean-Paul Bret, his predecessor as mayor. Always out of conviction, the man founded in 2014 a purchasing center so that tenants of social housing can buy and eat organic. “My only political strength is the freedom that my professional career gives me”, he confided to Release a few weeks ago. He was entrusted with the charge of relations with left-wing partners.
Stéphane Troussel, the sequanodionysian neighbor
He is one of Anne Hidalgo’s “relatives”. By its geographical proximity, the president of the department of Seine-Saint-Denis knows the candidate well. This 51-year-old socialist got involved with the mayor of Paris in 2016 to defend the candidacy of the capital, and that of his department for the 2024 Olympic Games. An activist in the Socialist Party since 1993, he was its national secretary deputy from 2014 to 2020, supporting Benoît Hamon in the 2017 primary, then Olivier Faure for the post of first secretary of the party in 2018. He has been a municipal councilor of La Courneuve since 1995 and was its general councilor before taking the presidency of the department. He is one of the spokespersons for Anne Hidalgo’s campaign.
Michaël Delafosse, the fan boy
On his return from the Tokyo Olympics, Michaël Delafosse had welcomed her as a head of state. For years, the mayor of Montpelier has been dithyrambic at the mention of Anne Hidalgo and her policy in Paris. Quadra, geo history teacher and socialist activist since he was 16, he is one of the symbols of this campaign team from the field. “He is someone faithful, loyal and hardworking,” said Hussein Bourgi, the boss of the PS in the Hérault, of him. Very respectful of the institution, but determined to shake up the practices of the party, this former president of La Mutuelle des Etudiants spread the word about soft modes of transport and free public transport (partially implemented in Montpellier) , to Glasgow and COP26. Her role in Anne Hidalgo’s campaign is not yet defined. “But it has acquired legitimacy on many subjects,” continues Hussein Bourgi. Including where we did not necessarily expect him because of his youth and his unwavering commitment to the left. In particular on questions related to secularism and its action in the field of security ”.