The political conscience of Serge Janquin, ex-deputy-mayor, was awakened when he was still a young child, in the heart of a town of Musicians of Bruay-La-Buissière that he never forgot. In an interview given to the Parliamentary Channel (LCP), in 2009, he recalled his “ miner father who, while going down to the mine, at the age of 13, had his foot cut off », « his uncles and cousins died of silicosis »… And to continue, to explain his commitment (both the fruit of “ chance and necessity ») : « What you receive from others during early childhood marks your childhood and your entire life. » Hence, already, the desire, shared with the family cocoon, to “ provide other answers to what is happening. »
From the city of musicians to the Palais Bourbon
It is in this context that Serge Janquin joined the Socialist Party in 1971. From 1989, the young professor he was held a series of mandates: mayor of Labuissière then of Bruay-La-Buissière – following Marcel Wacheux – then deputy of the 10e constituency of Pas-de-Calais from 1993. He also succeeds Marcel Wacheux. He is also vice-president of the regional council from 1992 to 1995, president of the very young SIVOM of the Bruaysis Community of which he is one of the main initiators, first quaestor of the National Assembly… In short, if he knows remain modest, he is a man who counts.
Because, at the same time, Serge Janquin is a heavyweight in the Socialist Party, at the departmental (federal) and national level. He thus led the “fed” of Pas-de-Calais, long the most powerful in the country, from 1997 to 2008. Although he held the reins, he still stood out from his predecessor and other tribune Daniel Percheron, who kept the boiling artesian pot strictly closed. The doors of the federal councils are then ajar to journalists. For a time…
Forty years of politics
Later, always faithful to his convictions, he opposed the Macron law that the government of Manuel Valls tried to have adopted by the Assembly using the famous article 49.3 of the Constitution. It was the end of another era. Before the Bruaysien was, like other emblematic local figures, “deemed to have resigned” from a Socialist Party in which very few have found themselves since then.
During the last municipal council of the Switaj area, in 2020, Serge Janquin, then deputy for declining health, said goodbye to public life. As a symbol before the victory of the National Rally in Bruay-La-Buissière, first in the legislative elections then in the municipal elections. We met him in 2022, after his legal setbacks, for a long-winded interview which retraced his life and his work. He declared, against all odds, to remain “ an engaged spectator of what is happening in France and in Bruaysis. I read the press a lot “. His last public appearance dates back to May 2022, during the funeral of André Delcourt, former mayor of Calonne-Ricouart and political comrade from the start.
Serge Janquin died this Saturday, September 28, 2024, in his 82e year. The funeral will take place on Friday October 4, 2024 at 10:30 a.m. in the village hall of the Calonne-Ricouart town hall from where the body will be taken to the Vendin-lès-Béthune crematorium in family privacy.