Bernard Bellec was Mayor of Niort for 17 years and President of the Community of Communes, then of the Agglomeration for 10 years. He left a lasting mark on the city.
Bernard Bellec became mayor of the city in 1986, after the sudden death in December 1985 of deputy-mayor René Gaillard.
In 1995, socialist activists refused him the nomination to head the municipal list, preferring Philippe Blanchette. But he maintains his candidacy in opposition to the PS, and he is re-elected after a triangular which opposes him to Ségolène Royal.
He will also be re-elected in 2001.
In 2002, he resigned when a new crisis shook the municipal majority, divided between his supporters and those of Geneviève Gaillard, his re-elected deputy, daughter of René Gaillard.
Bernard Bellec joined the MAIF in the 1950s until progressing to the position of deputy director (number 2 in the technical structure). He was forced to leave the company at the very beginning of the 1990s under the chairmanship of Jean Germain, elected and re-elected by the members of the Mutuelle since 1972.
Bernard Bellec will be president of the Union SMACL of 2005 To 2009, the year in which, during the general assembly in Tours, the elected representatives of the Mutuelle (representing all of the members), rejected the strategic plan it was promoting to create an SGAM (group insurance company mutual).
VIDEO INA. Niort: portrait of the new mayor (Télé Poitou-Charentes actualités – 09.01.1986)
