Gérard Collomb

Gérard Roland Collomb OQ (French pronunciation: [ʒeʁaʁ kɔlɔ̃]; 20 June 1947 – 25 November 2023) was a French politician who served as Mayor of Lyon from 2001 to 2017 and again from 2018 until 2020. He joined La République En Marche! (LREM) in 2017, when he left the Socialist Party (PS), which he had joined in 1969. Collomb was Minister of the Interior in the first and second government of Prime Minister Édouard Philippe from 2017 to 2018. Disagreements with President Emmanuel Macron over immigration policy led him to resign and return as Mayor of Lyon. He was a councillor for both the City of Lyon and Metropolis of Lyon from 2020 until his death in 2023.

Political career

Local politics

Collomb was elected as a Socialist municipal councillor for the 9th arrondissement of Lyon in the 1977 French municipal elections, and was re-elected six times since then. In 1981, aged 34, he was elected to the French National Assembly. He was re-elected in 1986 but lost his seat in 1988. From 1989 on, he led by the municipal opposition to Michel Noir on the Lyon municipal council. From 1992 to 1999 he also served as regional councillor for the Rhône-Alpes region, before his resignation.

Collomb was defeated in the 1995 local elections in Lyon, and became Mayor of the 9th arrondissement and vice-president of the Urban Community of Lyon, until 2001. He ran as leader of the Plural Left list in the 2001 local elections. He was elected Mayor on 25 March and also elected as president of the Urban Community of Lyon, a post he held until 2014. Among the projects he implemented was the Vélo'v.