“I learned that I broke the record for duration as mayor of Brest. But what matters is not so much the duration but the projects! These projects which have transformed and are still transforming our city and which require a lot of time to bring them to fruition today. More than ever, I remain convinced that the mandate of mayor is the most beautiful of mandates, the most demanding but also the most exhilarating.” This is the reaction of François Cuillandre when he is told his record.
The Internet contains some humorous and age group sites entitled: “You're old if you've known…”. And for some (young people who exaggerate!), those who experienced the first victory of the Blues at the Football World Cup (1998) are already old. We would therefore be almost old, in Brest, if we knew another mayor than François Cuillandre and this is a performance concerning him. Winner of the municipal elections on March 18, 2001, it was on the 24th that the council elected him mayor. That is, this Sunday, December 22, 2024, a total of twenty-three years, eight months and twenty-nine days. One day more than the one who held the record.
From the influence of the Regent
Jacques Lars, sieur de Poulrinou (a locality in Bohars), was the sole perpetual mayor of Brest. If you knew him, you are definitely not young! Born April 27, 1653 in Recouvrance, “he took office on April 3, 1694,” says Bruno Baron, doctor in modern history at the University of Western Brittany (UBO), associated with the CRBC (Breton and Celtic Research Center) .
Well, perpetual… There was a sort of reduction in the sentence to this life sentence. “On December 31, 1717, two years after the death of Louis XIV, his nephew, the Regent, Duke Philippe d'Orléans (Louis office” of Advisor to the King, perpetual and hereditary mayor, office purchased in 1704. “Jacques Lars complained, moreover, of not finding his way there,” relates the historian. Jacques Le Dall succeeded him. A street in Recouvrance bears the name of Lars, where there is a house from 1759 which would have as its only predecessor, in Brest, the Maison de la Fontaine, a stone's throw away, which would date from a few decades before the fountain which has been attached to it since 1760.
A record that must be close to a quarter of a century
The current mayor therefore owes his record in part to Duke Philippe d'Orléans, without whom Jacques Lars would have been in office until his death in 1732, at the age of 79! A paycheck at the time. The big difference between Lars and Cuillandre is that the latter was elected by the people, then re-elected when the first benefited from a royal order. In short, the fact of the Sun King, for whom Lars' father was a writer.
“In everything, we must consider the end,” wrote… La Fontaine, contemporary of Lars, father and son. Even if he were not to stand before the voters (or in any case not to be re-elected) in March 2026, François Cuillandre will therefore have brought this record to twenty-five years, give or take a few days. After four terms, including one of seven years instead of the usual six. The 2007 municipal elections were in fact postponed, that year being busy with elections.
In short, he would take this record to heights that are difficult to reach. A bit like Just Fontaine's thirteen goals (Fontaine, when you hold us…) at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. Some remember it! They are not young.
