A well-known face of the Parisian left, less so to the general public, the socialist senator of Paris, Rémi Féraud, was finally dubbed by Anne Hidalgo. In an interview with the newspaper Le Monde, the mayor of Paris announced that she did not want to run for a third term and dubbed one of the pillars of her majority. “I know him well, I have appreciated him for a very long time; he is the one who will be able to carry our history and reinvent a future for Paris. He has the necessary solidity, seriousness and ability to bring people together,” greets the councilor.
Praises that the person concerned could also drag like a ball and chain in the race for mayor, as the former presidential candidate ended up splitting, less on his record than on his methods, even within his own family political with a Parisian left which appears relatively divided fifteen months before the municipal elections. “Paris is neither an inheritance nor an income from a situation,” warned PS neo-deputy Emmanuel Grégoire a few days ago, another candidate, long presented as Anne Hidalgo’s heir apparent before abruptly leaving his post as first deputy.
By inducting Rémi Féraud, the mayor of Paris also rewards loyalty: already committed alongside Bertrand Delanoë, Rémi Féraud is one of the strongest supporters of Anne Hidalgo, at the head of the “Paris en commun” group since 2014. Municipal council.
Political beginnings
Slender silhouette, balanced phrasing, Rémi Féraud, 53, studied at the Paris Business School and Sciences Po. This native of Versailles, son of an engineer at Total and a history professor- geography, joined the Young Socialist Movement in 1993, encouraged by the heavy defeat of the left in the legislative elections. He then introduces himself as a Rocardian.
After a stint in the office of Defense Minister Alain Richard in the early 2000s, he cultivated his local presence in the 10e district of Paris, where he became the first deputy of Mayor Tony Dreyfuss. “He got me started, then delegated more and more files to me,” he tells Le Point.
Rémi Féraud won the district mayorship in 2008 with a very large lead (74.96% of the votes in the second round) thanks to the support of environmentalists, after leading the list “Paris, a step ahead with Bertrand Delanoë”. In the process, he was elected first federal secretary of the PS in the capital, a position he held until 2015.
A mayor facing terrorism
As mayor of the 10e district, Rémi Féraud defends the controversial opening of the first shooting room in the capital, at the Lariboisière hospital, which he defends as a public health issue while the surroundings of the Gare du Nord are invaded by numerous drug addicts .
It strengthens the supply of social housing in the district, and supports the opening and renovation of various cultural establishments well known to Parisians, such as the Le Louxor cinema, a 1920s theater left abandoned for twenty-five years, or the Françoise Sagan media library installed in the former Saint-Lazare hospital.
Above all, Rémi Féraud found himself on the front line on the night of November 13, 2015, when his district was hit hard by the attack on the terraces with around fifteen dead on rue Bichat and Alibert. He leaves his town hall when the shooting breaks out. “The dead were lying on the sidewalk in front of the Petit Cambodge and the Carillon. These are very busy establishments, very popular, there are always a lot of young people. It was shock and amazement, the contrast was extreme between this dead silence and what this neighborhood where I live is usually like, very young and alive,” he recounted in the columns of Le Monde.
In the Senate
Elected senator of Paris in 2017, Rémi Féraud renounces the town hall of 10e district according to the law on the non-cumulation of mandates, but retains its place on the Council of Paris. In the Upper House, he sits on the Finance Committee, where he is one of the special rapporteurs on the State’s external action budget. Furthermore, Rémi Féraud has made the regulation of rentals of furnished tourist accommodation one of his main workhorses, with amendments regularly tabled to blow up the tax loophole from which they benefit.
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