Bertrand Delanoë

Bertrand Delanoë (born May 30, 1950, Tunis, Tunisia) is a French politician who served as mayor of Paris (2001–14). He was the first socialist mayor of the French capital in 130 years. He also was one of the first openly gay politicians in Europe to lead a major city.

After spending his early years in French-controlled North Africa, Delanoë returned with his family to France and finished his education in Toulouse. Having earned an advanced degree in economics, he plunged into politics and became secretary of the Socialist Federation of Aveyron département at age 23. His potential was spotted by François Mitterrand, the Socialist Party leader, and he rose fast, becoming a Paris city councillor in 1977.

Delanoë was elected a deputy to the National Assembly in 1981, and in 1983 he became head of the Socialist Party’s national federations. At age 33 he was effectively number three in the ruling Socialist Party. In 1986 Delanoë lost his National Assembly seat, though he kept his seat on the Paris city council. He founded a public relations business, mainly on behalf of institutional clients, including teacher and student associations.

Delanoë returned to prominence when he became leader of the Socialist group of the Paris city council in 1993. He led the Socialists into the 1995 municipal elections with modest success, taking 6 of the city’s 20 arrondissements (municipal districts) from the right. While continuing to sit on Paris’s city council, Delanoë served in the French Senate from 1995 to 2001.

The 1995 elections had seen Jacques Chirac, of the centre-right Rally for the Republic (Rassemblement pour la République; RPR), end his 18 years as mayor of Paris when he became president; he was succeeded as mayor by Jean Tiberi, also of the RPR. But as the 2001 municipal elections approached, the RPR’s domination of the capital was crumbling from scandals of corruption and internecine warfare among Chirac’s political heirs. The Socialists seemed poised to win control of the city council, and, as the leading Socialist councillor, Delanoë seemed likely to become the next mayor. (Following the municipal elections, the city council elects one of its members as mayor.)

During the 2001 campaign Delanoë’s open homosexuality proved to be a nonissue, and his low-key style and persistence won him the support of many Parisians. In addition, he was helped mightily by the split in the RPR ranks between Philippe Séguin, the RPR candidate, and Tiberi, the incumbent mayor who by then had left the RPR. In the first round of balloting on March 11, 2001, Séguin polled 25.7 percent of the vote, and Tiberi scored 13.9 percent. Delanoë, who had been able to secure backing from the Greens, made a strong showing with 31.4 percent of the vote. He won fairly easily in the final round of voting on March 18. With this victory, Delanoë became the first socialist to serve as mayor of the capital since the Commune of Paris government of 1871.

After becoming mayor, Delanoë had his biggest and most controversial impact on the city’s traffic system. He embarked on a series of measures to discriminate against cars in favour of other forms of transport. These included closing the Seine riverbank roadway for part of the summer (and transforming the riverside into a series of beaches, known as the Paris Plages), adding new bus lanes on main boulevards, and establishing studies on the reintroduction of trams and more use of the Seine to carry cargo. He later introduced a citywide pay-as-you-ride bicycle service.

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In 2002 a man professing a hatred of politicians and homosexuals stabbed Delanoë in the stomach, but the mayor survived the assassination attempt. In 2005 Delanoë saw Paris lose its bid to host the Olympic Games in 2012. Later that year he was confronted with widespread rioting in suburbs heavily populated by immigrants. Despite such setbacks and challenges, Delanoë continued to enjoy widespread popularity. He was reelected mayor of Paris on March 21, 2008. Among his later initiatives were a number of renovation projects. Delanoë left office at the end of his second term in 2014, and he was succeeded by Anne Hidalgo, the first woman to serve as mayor of Paris.