The president of the Territorial Collectivity of Saint-Barthélemy (French West Indies), Bruno Magras (Les Républicains), announced on Thursday February 10 his decision not to run for a sixth term in a row during the territorial elections of March 20 and 27 next.
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In a column addressed to the local press, Bruno Magras declares: “I arrive at the twilight of a full life. After forty years of elected life, including twenty-seven years in business management, it is with the feeling of accomplishment that I leave the political scene.“. Born on September 9, 1951 (70 years old) in Saint-Barthélemy, Bruno Magras entered politics in the 1980s. First a municipal councilor, in 1995 he was elected mayor of the island of Saint-Barthélemy, which was then a commune attached to the department of Guadeloupe. From then on, he will not stop campaigning for the island to benefit from a statutory evolution.
Reelected in the first round
On December 7, 2003, while Bruno Magras was serving his second term as mayor, a popular consultation was organized and the voters of Saint-Barthélemy approved by 95.51% of the votes cast the institutional project which made the island a territorial community single assembly, detached from Guadeloupe. On July 15, 2007, Saint-Barthélemy officially became an overseas collectivity and Bruno Magras was elected its president. He will be re-elected in 2012 and then in 2017, each time in the first round of voting. In 2012, thanks to the support of the President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy, he managed to include Saint-Barthélemy in the list of European overseas countries and territories, which enabled the island to acquire autonomy vis-à-vis vis-à-vis the European Union.
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In 2012, two months before the territorial elections, Bruno Magras also publicly announced his decision to leave politics. Less than a month later, he split a second platform in the press to declare that he was reconsidering his decision and presented himself at the head of a revised list. A few weeks later, he was re-elected with more than 73% of the votes cast. This year, however, unlike 2012, the outgoing president has already decided to support one of his territorial advisers, Romaric Magras, who is also one of his second cousins. However, he still has not officially applied. Bruno Magras was a member of the national council of the UMP (Union for a popular movement) before joining LR. Business manager, he managed the airline Saint-Barth Commuter until 2017.