4:30 p.m .: Update on what to remember from Michèle Rubirola’s press conference
The first woman mayor of Marseille, Michèle Rubirola, announced on Tuesday that she had tendered her resignation due to the health challenges she faces and wished that her first socialist deputy Benoît Payan succeed her.
“From the summer I experienced the first difficulties related to my health. (…) These tests (of health) limit the energy that I can mobilize. Being mayor of Marseile is 300% of his time, ”Ms. Rubirola said in a speech from Marseille city hall.
Less than six months after being elected at the head of a union of the left called “Marseille Spring” which had ended 25 years of reign of the right and the ex-mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin, this doctor of 64-year-old profession, prefers to give way.
“I have always spoken of a collective and whoever leads it must be the one who best corresponds to the moment”, she insisted, proposing Benoît Payan as successor.
“We are a duo and I want our duo to continue but reverse and for Benoit to become mayor. It is her energy and her experience that Marseille needs today, ”she insisted.
“There are long-term specialists and emergency physicians in medicine. I am of the first category. And that’s the second we need in Marseille, ”she continued, highlighting the immense challenges in one of the poorest cities in France, where the health crisis, social and financial crisis are combined.
16h16: The Mayor of Marseille Michèle Rubirola speaks to journalists from the Town Hall
“I am speaking to you from Marseille town hall. This town hall is a powerful symbol”
“Our majority is diverse and engaged. It looks like Marseille”, “The election has turned the page of a troubled period for the Phocaean city”
“I put all my strength into the battles that we were fighting head-on. Since October 2020, things have changed”, “Before the summer I experienced difficulties related to my health (…) had to undergo surgery at the end of September “
The mayor of Marseille Michèle Rubirola formalizes her resignation during this press conference: “I am leaving my functions”. I remain a woman committed to serving my city (…) I will always be alongside my team. “” It is no longer up to me to lead the collective “for the city of Marseille
“I would like Benoît Payan to replace me” at the head of Marseille town hall
4:01 p.m .: The mayor of Marseille Michèle Rubirola is organizing a press conference from Marseille in the next few minutes
14h33: His resignation, which must be accepted by the prefect, should lead to a new vote by the municipal council to choose a successor. A perilous exercise for the brand new left majority, which had managed to delight the town hall on the right after 25 years of reign of Jean-Claude Gaudin (LR).
13h43: Since her debut at the town hall in early July, Ms. Rubirola has withdrawn on several occasions, for holidays in August, for surgery in September and finally, at the end of October, because she was “contact case” at Covid-19 .
Not comfortable in front of the cameras, she often gave way to her first deputy, Benoit Payan, leader of the socialist opposition during the last term of Jean-Claude Gaudin (1995-2020), who should become acting mayor.
This “tandem” destabilized his political opponents, including the president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, Renaud Muselier (LR), who had slipped to the press in October: “I do not want to discuss with a duo but with the mayor!”.
While rumors about a resignation of the mayor swelled after an article in Le Monde reporting that the elected representative was considering leaving after three months in the mayor’s chair, Michèle Rubirola and Benoît Payan had cut it short, in a duo interview with Liberation at the end of October.
“Today, I am here and I will stay there”, affirmed the sixty-year-old, while slipping: “We do not know what will happen, like the disease”.
13h00: In July, due to the PLM law (Paris-Lyon-Marseille) which requires one vote per sector in these three cities, the election of Ms. Rubirola was played in the “third round”, that is to say tell the city council, after several hours of breathless suspense, in particular to ensure the support of the leftist list – competitor of the Marseille Spring – led by Samia Ghali, figure of the popular districts of the city.
In the absence of an absolute majority in the first round of the ballot in the hemicyle of the Old Port, the negotiations between elected officials continued throughout the day of Saturday, July 4, to end, in extremis, in the election of Ms. Rubirola.
An unexpected victory for this woman, a doctor in the working-class neighborhoods, quasi-novice in politics, appointed to bring together the motley left coalition of the Marseille Spring (Socialist Party, Communist Party, part of the rebels, Ecology-the Greens).
12h45: Doctor, elected ecologist, Michèle Rubirola became last July the first woman mayor of Marseille, tilting to the left the city held for 25 years by LR Jean-Claude Gaudin, after an electoral saga with twists and turns. Ms. Rubirola, 63, candidate for the union of the left and the ecologists of the Marseille Spring, obtained the absolute majority, 51 votes out of 92 advisers, the RN having abstained, thanks to the last-minute support of the former senator -PS Samia Ghali.
Leader of the local Socialist Party, Benoît Payan had given up being head of the municipal list to allow a vast union of the left, part of France Insubordinate to the PS.
12:41 p.m.: The mayor of Marseille Michèle Rubirola, elected on July 4, will resign from his post, announces the radio at noon France Inter.
“Michèle Rubirola has called a meeting of her majority to leave her place as mayor to her first deputy, Benoit Payan, and take his”, specify our colleagues. This meeting is scheduled to take place this afternoon at 2:30 p.m.
According to our colleagues, she would take the chair of first deputy at the town hall of Marseille. “One of the explanations for this political change would be the state of fatigue of Michele Rubirola, linked to medical concerns,” said France Inter. Last September, due to surgery, Michèle Rubirola had to be absent from her post for several weeks. At the time, Benoît Payan was acting.
–
