Pierre Hurmic, well surrounded, during his victory in Bordeaux, June 28, 2020. – UGO AMEZ / SIPA
- This June 28, after six months of an unprecedented electoral campaign, Pierre Hurmic won the mayor of Bordeaux, with 46.48% of the votes.
- The convinced ecologist thus puts an end to 73 years of reign of the right in Bordeaux.
- “Funny”, “authentic”, “constant” but also “master of punchlines” … We asked his entourage who was really Pierre Hurmic, the discreet.
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“We’re not bad there, we believe in it, right? ” It’s June 10 and Pierre Hurmic (Bordeaux Respire) has his portrait taken by our photojournalist colleague in front of the town hall of
Bordeaux. Hardly relaxed in front of the lens, the 65-year-old man finds the smile and the funny little phrase once the camera is put away. Because whoever, this Sunday evening, claimed the
victory in municipal elections is “above all very funny”, according to Nicolas Mannant.
“He’s a master of punchlines. Let us not forget his “half mayors” when he spoke of the Florian-Cazenave duo, lets go of his campaign director and friend for over thirty years. He is a lawyer who always knew how to use the language and find the right words. It is a pleasure to exchange with him. “
“Consistency is its strength”
Set up in Bordeaux in 1973, the “Basque cathedral”, according to Philippe Poutou, became a lawyer and was sworn in in 1981. His pleadings and his interviews imprinted with this accent of the South West which makes him sympathetic. Its sleeve effects and speeches are nonetheless determined. Proof of this are his quarrels with his lifelong rival Alain Juppe, who during twenty-five years of opposition will have called him his “service green”. “These attacks had no impact on him. He always preferred to stay the course and defend his ideas. Consistency is its strength. He has been a convinced eco-friend for twenty-five years and you have to be solid to defend an idea which at the time was 0.002% ”, comments Nicolas Mannant, who met Hurmic in 1979 on the benches of Sciences-Po.
Pierre Hurmic was already an emulator of Jacques Ellul. Already, the one who often quotes Victor Hugo knew that “nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come”. And already, the young lawyer was pleading the green cause, in the privacy of his home in the Saint-Genès district up to the courtrooms of the Bordeaux court. A conviction that will lead him to defend
Voluntary mowers or to
chain, two years ago, to the century-old chestnut trees in Place Gambetta.
“It was this strength of conviction, this constancy in the fight that pushed me to join him,” explains Camille Choplin, Boeotian of propelled politics number two on the Bordeaux Respire list. He said to me “if you don’t come, you will let less virtuous people decide for you”. I told myself that with him, I would not lose sincerity. His abnegation for ecology and his sympathy, they finish convincing me. “
“The Bordelais certainly voted green but not Hurmic”
Pierre Hurmic is sympathetic. In his camp, the report is unanimous. And it is surely thanks to this that he managed, against all odds, to make a common list with the PC and the PS. “Between the people of the PS close to Hamon, the ecologists, the communists, the alterglobalists, it is very heterogeneous. They are full of contradictions, “however, Nicolas Florian said to World last January. And to add, scathing: “I don’t see them in a position to manage the city. “” Let us not forget that the abstention was particularly high. He will not be the mayor of all Bordeaux residents. The others have certainly voted green and not Hurmic, ”we loose discreetly in the entourage of the outgoing mayor LR.
“He is unifying. He is a man who enjoys talking but who also knows how to listen, replies Marie-Laure Bost, fellow lawyer. In thirty years, we have faced each other more than once before the judges and I can tell you that he does not give up. He is a courageous lawyer who defended complicated cases, far from being mainstream[Hewas[IlaétéBertrand Cantat’s lawyer or José Bové]and who has always maintained freedom of speech despite all the codes that frame our business. “
“He will never cover Paris Match »
If Pierre Hurmic, he says, is far from looking for “the little phrase to make the buzz”, he will have scratched Nicolas Florian more than once during this campaign. None (including journalists from 20 Minutes) will have criticized him for being behind, for having missed his second part of the campaign. When his opponents felt that he was locked in the environmental issue and unable to debate other subjects.
Pierre Hurmic describes himself as a “Girondin”, a sober man who runs “not after the media but rather after the voters”. “He’s a quiet guy. A discreet. He will never parade with his wife and two children and I do not think I am wrong in telling you that he will never cover Paris Match “, Camille Choplin agrees. And the ecologist to entrust “admire” this “very cultivated” man who wrote a novel and has a “man side of the authentic terroir”.
“I will be a full-time mayor. The Bordeaux people deserve it, I will not disappoint them,” said Pierre Hurmic also on the evening of his victory at #Bordeaux #Municipal pic.twitter.com/M4vbQn4Em4
– Marion Pignot (@ pignot1) June 28, 2020
“He is a free man, who keeps his distance from the political apparatus. It is an autodidact who gives his thought without detours ”, adds Nicolas Mannant who readily compares the spirit of Pierre Hurmic to that of Montaigne or Mauriac. “He is a measured but determined person. Some people take the measures for soft knees, but Pierre Hurmic still has his fist raised. “
“He is someone who is always in contestation, in the escalation, it is his line, since 1995 he is on it”, answers Nicolas Florian, about the local elected representative for almost three decades.
Sunday evening, the lawyer for the ecology made lie the polls which, ten days ago, gave him the loser, nine points behind Nicolas Florian. “I am a long distance runner. The poll may have been true, but we went after the voters one by one, “reacted the new mayor to his crowded HQ. And to promise… authenticity and sobriety: “We will be humble elected officials. You will never hear any arrogance in the mouth of any of us. “
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