" I have devoted forty years of my life in Lyon. Twenty years to conquer it, twenty years to transform it. "It is with these words, and a lot of emotion, Gérard Collomb just bow out. Four decades of political life commenced, to the left in the PS, continued with Emmanuel Macron, to complete abruptly with an alliance to the right and a clearing in front of the candidate LR to the metropolis of Lyon, the senator François-Noël Buffet.

toughness. This is without doubt one of the character traits from Gérard Collomb. It took the young agrégé de lettres classiques, promised to a successful academic career, begun in 1968 at the socialist Party to conquer a city historically rooted in the center right. Twenty years of opposition under the authority of a lineage of mayors, of the Louis Pradel at Raymond Bar, passing by Francisque Collomb and Michel Black. And then, in march 2001, the victory, the unexpected, which is obtained with the blessing of Raymond Barre. Gérard Collomb offers Lyon to the left and invents the " plural left ", a large gathering of communists to the centre, passing by the environmentalists. A gathering that it will extend itself gradually to his right, and integrated in the team of the sarkozystes well-known, as the lawyer Richard Brumm, who remained one of his last faithful.

Read also Gérard Collomb and the kiss of Judas to Macron

This gathering foreshadows already the foundations of running ! and explains in part his thunderbolt to Emmanuel Macron, which he sees as a spiritual son. "Lyon has been the laboratory of the macronisme ", he recalls regularly with pride. By identifying the first, "the potential" of the young Macron, by accompanying him in his conquest of power, by opening up its networks, laying with him the basics of running !, Gérard Collomb has also earned a stature of a national who had been denied until then. Snubbed by François Mitterrand, ignored by Lionel Jospin during the cohabitation, forgotten by François Hollande, it is finally Emmanuel Macron, who will provide him with a rematch with his first ministerial portfolio. And not only that, the ministry of the Interior. A mission of short duration, abandoned less than 18 months later to return hastily in his city that he felt escape him. The episode marks the beginning of the estrangement between the two men. And also the beginning of the troubles. "With Lyon, his political friends, business leaders, everyone in this city has warned against the fourth mandate sought at the age of 73, the mandate too, but he didn't want to hear ", regrets the one of his followers, which has since seen their relationship deteriorate. It is now with sadness " the end of the reign pitiful ". "This is what will remain of Collomb in Lyon, what a shame after the journey !" it forecasts.

What will happen to Gérard Collomb ?

" Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée palace, this is one of my great source of pride ", he says as soon as he can, the tear in the eye. Like the one he was paid in public during the inauguration of the president of the Republic, may 14, 2017. He wants to remain as kingmaker, as the one who accompanied Emmanuel Macron to the top of the State.

In Lyon, in spite of this last right turn, there will still remain as the one who has brought the left to power. "You're still a man of the left ?" asks there regularly by observing the orientation of her political trajectory. The issue has the gift to irritate Gérard Collomb : "I have no lessons to receive person on the left," stated he, then, referring to his working-class origins, father, worker, steelworker, mother, housekeeper, the course of his PS, and his design of st placed of the left : "we need a strong economy, we must support businesses to create wealth and be able to redistribute it. "His investment, since he has been in power in favour of the attractiveness of its agglomeration, of economic networks, at the same time as social housing. That's how this mayor builder put music to his conception of the left from the top of the metropolis of Lyon.

"The worst political image that a politician can give"

Conceived and created in 2015, with the complicity of the senator MoDem, Michel Mercier, the community which gathers 39 municipalities and nearly 1.5 million inhabitants, one of the most powerful in France, that is another one of its prides. "This is the first metropolis of France after the Île-de-France ", he recalled with pride Thursday, erecting, at the time of announcing its withdrawal, its own balance sheet. A supercollectivité, for a superpower to which it is now forced to give up, pushed by voters, which only granted him the fourth place last march 15. Pushed also by a green wave that he has not seen it coming.

Its alliance with the right negotiated in direct with Laurent Wauquiez leaves a very sour taste in its former companions.

" It is the marriage of the carp and the rabbit ", summarizes the deputy Jean-Louis Touraine, a former socialist who has followed LREM. "A day well dark for the policy of lyon ", to Georges Képénékian, a man of the left, and a friend of thirty years. One who has served as interim chair of the mayor of Lyon during the transition to Beauvau describes " the worst political image that a politician can give." "An alliance against nature" for his former dolphin David Kimelfeld, who followed him, also of the PS, LREM before be entrusted with the presidency of the metropolis. "A line is crossed ", for Stanislaus Guerini, the boss of LREM, which is preparing to withdraw the team of Gérard Collomb their investiture macroniste.