HASFormer socialist minister, right arm of Pierre Mauroy and deputy mayor of Dunkirk for 25 years, Michel Delebarre breathed his last at the age of 75. Agence France-Presse learned of his death on Saturday April 9 from the voice of the mayors of Dunkirk and Lille. “Michel Delebarre left us this morning […] Michel Delebarre will have carried out many projects which still mark our daily lives”, announced the mayor of Dunkirk, Patrice Vergriete, on his Facebook account, confirming information from The voice of the North. The socialist mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, confirmed this death to AFP.
“During his long career, which led him to become Minister of the Republic, he was able to forge a bond of trust and mutual esteem with the people of Dunkirk. In his memory, the flags of Dunkirk will be lowered to half mast,” he added. The socialist mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, confirmed this death to AFP.
Michel Delebarre died in Lille, where he had been welcomed in an Ehpad for several months, “very weakened” in particular by severe diabetes, PS senator from the North Patrick Kanner told AFP. Former senator in the North after a long career in the National Assembly and several ministerial posts under François Mitterrand, Michel Delebarre cut his teeth in politics alongside Pierre Mauroy.
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His political career
Born in Bailleul (Nord) on April 27, 1946, he entered politics alongside Pierre Mauroy, for whom he was chief of staff at the town hall of Lille, then at Matignon, before being appointed Minister of Labor in 1984 with the arrival of Laurent Fabius as Prime Minister. He continues with six other ministerial portfolios until 1993 (Social Affairs and Employment, Transport, Equipment or even the first Ministry of the City, under Michel Rocard).
Mayor of Dunkirk from 1989 to 2014, he was a deputy for twelve years, and president of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais regional council from 1998 to 2001. He also had responsibilities within the European Union, as President of the Committee of the Regions, an advisory body bringing together the local authorities of the European Union, between 2006 and 2008. This geography graduate had been indicted in January 1997 in the Elysée wiretapping affair, in as Pierre Mauroy’s chief of staff and as such responsible for the interministerial control group (GIC), responsible for “security interceptions”.
The former minister had admitted in this context to having authorized certain illegal tapping. He was convicted in 2005, but released from the sentence.
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A shower of tribute
As soon as the news was made official, the first tributes fell. François Hollande hailed “a great servant of the state and a fierce decentralizer. He combined his eminent skills with an inexhaustible human warmth. A socialist from the north, he was an authentic European social democrat. I am thinking of his loved ones, ”he said. The mayor of Lille Martine Aubry for her part paid tribute to this “great figure of the left of the North, who, as Minister and local elected representative, carried the values of socialism with conviction. My warm thoughts to his wife Janine, his daughter Caroline, his family, and to the Dunkirks for whom he gave so much.
Tributes were also paid on the right. Xavier Bertrand in particular hailed a “builder mayor of Dunkirk, President who marked the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Region with his vision, servant of the State: Michel Delebarre had several lives, but always with one ambition, to defend his Region and its inhabitants. My thoughts to his loved ones and to the Dunkirks, ”he wrote on twitter.
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