After a strong electoral sequence – environmentalist primary for the mayor, presidential and legislative – and after the cracks that appeared within the majority on the issue of swimming pool and burkini regulations, the town hall of Grenoble seems to be turning a page now with the replacement of ‘Elisa Martin as first deputy and the departure from the mayor’s office of one of the personalities most present with Eric Piolle since 2014, special adviser Enzo Lesourt.
Who to succeed Elisa Martin?
Elected MP for the 3rd constituency of Isère in June, Elisa Martin, first deputy mayor of Grenoble since the first term and accession to power in 2014, must leave the municipal executive in the name of non-accumulation of mandates. It is also delegated to working-class neighborhoods and to republican equality. The names of two women are circulating to succeed him: that of Maud Tavel, current deputy for public tranquility, “charge” which she inherited at the start of the second term in 2020 following Elisa Martin; and that of Isabelle Peters, current 5th deputy. Nothing is confirmed neither for one nor for the other and nothing says that the reflection is limited to them two but the file should be clarified even before the municipal council of July 11 since it is a question of a press conference to address the subject this Friday. Even more than just her replacement, the withdrawal of Elisa Martin from her delegation should be the occasion for other movements within the majority. No revolution on the horizon, but a few adjustments, several changes, depending on everyone’s aspirations, and perhaps also past tensions or future challenges.
Enzo Lesourt’s letter
And decidedly this beginning of summer is synonymous with upheaval at the town hall of Grenoble since in addition to the withdrawal of Elisa Martin from a function she has held for 8 years, the announcement of another departure marks this week. In the mayor’s cabinet this time. Enzo Lesourt leaves, “fired” he wrote in a letter sent to the elected representatives of the majority last Friday and which, even if it was not intended for the outside, came out of the walls of the town hall. Special adviser to the mayor of Grenoble since 2014, he was the eminence grise, the speechwriter, the omnipresent adviser of all the candidacies and all the files, successful or more difficult, of Eric Piolle. A letter borrowed from a certain bitterness against in particular the director of cabinet, with whom he does not seem to have the best relations. “I therefore join the long list of violent departures from the cabinet of the mayor of Grenoble” he writes, “in a way, we can say that I will have learned and grown from the first day to the last day of my activity as a special adviser, and that the sense of my moral limits comes out sharpened“. It remains to be seen if he will be replaced and by whom.
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