While we are still awaiting the composition of the new government of Elisabeth Borne, France 3 Bourgogne is looking at the Burgundians who have occupied the seat of minister or secretary of state in recent years.
Will the mayor of Dijon return to Paris? The suspense remains, even if last month, François Rebsamen said he was not interested in a ministerial post. The former figurehead of the PS, 70 years old, knows the exercise in any case: Minister of Labor under François Hollande from 2014 to 2015, he is experiencing a difficult mandate, undermined by sharply rising unemployment figures. He returns to the town hall of Dijon after the death of his replacement, Alain Millot. Apart from this year of interruption, François Rebsamen has occupied the town hall of Dijon for 19 years. Former president of the socialist group in the Senate from 2011 to 2014, he supported Emmanuel Macron during the last presidential election in 2022 and distanced himself from the PS. At the beginning of April, he launched the Progressive Federation, which aims to “attract all those disappointed by the PS”.
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Born in 1946 in Nevers, the outgoing Minister of Culture under the Macron five-year term has held numerous government mandates. Coming from the RPR (ex-UMP, ex-LR), it becomes Minister of Ecology under Jacques Chirac in the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin from 2002 to 2004. She was then Minister of Health and Sports under Nicolas Sarkozy from 2007 to 2010, in the government of François Fillon, before switching to Ministry of Solidarity and Social Cohesion from the end of 2010 to 2012. At the end of this mandate, Roselyne Bachelot also left her seat as an MP to devote herself to the media: she became a TV columnist on D8 in the program Le Grand 8, presented by Laurence Ferrari. The former minister multiplies television appearances, as a host, columnist and even actress – she performed in 2018 the play Les monologues du vagina in the company of Myriam El Khomri and Marlène Schiappa, also passed by the government.
Roselyne Bachelot returns to government in 2020, asked by Emmanuel Macron to take the portfolio of Culture, a position she has held until now. Roselyne Bachelot lived mainly in Loire-Atlantique, where she studied, worked and exercised several political mandates, but the septuagenarian keeps ties in Nièvre. In December 2020, when culture is at a standstill in the midst of the wave of covid, it inaugurates in Nevers the house of culture Marcel Narquinnamed after his uncle, who died a few months earlier, who was General de Gaulle’s delegate in Nièvre and deputy mayor of Nevers.
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Will he keep his job, get another one or leave the government? Born in Hauts-de-Seine, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne has ties to Yonne: his family is from Vallery, near Sens. He is currently Minister Delegate in charge of Tourism, French Abroad and La Francophonie since 2020. He is also Minister Delegate of Small and Medium Enterprises, a portfolio he has only been managing for five months, after the disaster resignation of Alain Griset in December 2021, sentenced for “incomplete or misleading declaration” of his heritage. Before that, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne was Secretary of State for Europe and Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2020, still under Emmanuel Macron.
Coming from the right (UMP then LR), Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne was also mayor of Vallery, departmental and general councilor of Yonne and vice-president of his community of communes.
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Born in Saint-Rémy, on the outskirts of Chalon-sur-Saône, Benjamin Griveaux served as Secretary of State to the Minister of Economy and Finance for five months, then became government spokesperson from the end of 2017 to early 2019, under the Macron five-year term and the Philippe government. Benjamin Griveaux was elected municipal councilor of Chalon-sur-Saône in 2008, on the list of Christophe Sirugue, socialist mayor from 2008 to 2014. He was also general councilor of Saône-et-Loire from 2008 to 2015.
In 2020, he ran for the municipal elections in Paris, but withdrew his candidacy after what would become the “Griveaux affair”: the publication on the internet of a sexual video by the Russian activist Piotr Pavlenski. Since then, Benjamin Griveaux has left political life.
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Also a native of Saint-Rémy in Saône-et-Loire, Rachida Dati, 56, grew up in the Prés-Saint-Jean district in Chalon-sur-Saône. From 2007 to 2009, she was Minister of Justice under Nicolas Sarkozy, in the Fillon government. It is notably at the origin of the major reform of the judicial map, which reduces the number of courts to concentrate on the major centres.
Rachida Dati was subsequently elected MEP from 2009 to 2019, in parallel with her mandate as mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris, renewed since 2008. In 2020, she ran for municipal elections in the capital but was beaten by the outgoing mayor, the socialist Anne Hidalgo.
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MP, minister, presidential candidate and beekeeper : born in Clamecy in the Nièvre, Arnaud Montebourg, 59 years old today, has multiplied the hats. He grew up on the wine-growing coast in Côte-d’Or, studied law in Dijon and joined the Socialist Party at that time. Arnaud Montebourg was Member of Parliament for Saône-et-Loire for 15 years, from 1997 to 2012, also President of the General Council of Saône-et-Loire from 2008 to 2012. It was that year that he joined the government of Jean -Marc Ayrault then Manuel Valls, under the presidency of François Hollande: he held the position of Minister of the Economy, Productive Recovery and Digital for two years, from 2012 to 2014. After the second reshuffle, he left office and returned to politics in 2016: we remember his speech at Mont Beuvray, near Bibracte, between Saône-et-Loire and Nièvre.
A year later, he ran for the citizen primary prior to the 2017 presidential election and finished third, behind Manuel Valls and Benoît Hamon. In 2022, Arnaud Montebourg returns again: he announces, in Clamecy, to be a presidential candidate for “the rise of France”. Weighed down by very weak voting intentions and clumsiness (notably this series of phone calls made to other left-wing candidates in an attempt to form a union), Arnaud Montebourg ends up abandoning the race for the nomination in January 2022.
The 48-year-old Dijonnais remains, to this day, the minister who has exercised the shortest mandate of the Fifth Republic : appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, Tourism and French Nationals Abroad, he held this position for only nine days. He resigns, challenged by several national media who accuse him of tax evasion: non-declaration of income, non-payment of his taxes, his Parisian apartment and other bills. Thomas Thévenoud defends himself by explaining that he suffers from “administrative phobia”, an exit widely mocked by the opposition.
In 2015, Public Finance filed a complaint for tax evasion: Thomas Thévenoud is sentenced on appeal to one year in prison suspended and one year of ineligibility. A native of Dijon, Thomas Thévenoud spent part of his life in Mâcon and Montceau-les-Mines. General Councilor of Saône-et-Loire from 2008 to 2015 (under the presidency of Arnaud Montebourg), he was also elected deputy of Saône-et-Loire from 2012 to 2017 under the PS label.
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A native of Semur-en-Auxois, François Patriat, 79, is first Secretary of State in charge of SMEs, Trade and Crafts from 2000 to 2002under the Chirac-Jospin cohabitation. He then took very briefly the portfolio of Agriculture and Fisheries from February to May 2002, until the next presidential election. Figure of the PS for more than 40 years before supporting Emmanuel Macron in 2017, François Patriat chaired the Regional Council of Burgundy from 2004 to 2015, until the regional merger with Franche-Comté. He has currently been a senator for Côte-d’Or for nearly 14 years.
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Minister of Public Service from 2011 until the presidential election of 2012, François Sauvadet receives this portfolio after the second reshuffle of the Fillon government under Nicolas Sarkozy. He then succeeded Georges Tron, implicated – then subsequently convicted – of rape and sexual assault. At the helm of this ministry, François Sauvadet is notably at the origin of the law that bears his name, with the aim of facilitating access to CDI employment for agents on fixed-term contracts in the public service and to encourage parity. local level, François Sauvadet is above all president of the Departmental Council of Côte-d’Or (ex-general council) and this since 2008. He was also deputy of the 4th district of Côte-d’Or for 23 years, from 1993 to 2016 and mayor of Vitteaux from 1995 to 2008.
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At 74, Gérard Collomb is best known for having held the town hall of Lyon for 18 years, but it must be remembered that he was born in Chalon-sur-Saône, in Saône-et-Loire. Historical figure of the PS before joining LREM in 2016, Gérard Collomb becomes Minister of the Interior under the government of Edouard Philippe and the Macron presidency, a position he held for less than a year and a half. In 2018, entangled in the Benalla affair and accused of having covered up the actions of Alexandre Benalla, project manager at the Elysée, Gérard Collomb announced that he was leaving his post as minister to run for mayor of Lyon. His resignation was initially refused by Emmanuel Macron, but Gérard Collomb ended up leaving his post.
In 2019, he was the subject of a preliminary investigation for suspicion of embezzlement of public funds. In the Lyon metropolitan elections, Gérard Collomb initially presented himself under the LREM label but saw his nomination withdrawn after announcing his alliance with Les Républicains. It is ultimately an environmental candidate, Grégory Doucet, from the “green wave” of the 2020 municipal elections, who takes the keys to the city.
