The former mayor of Marseille for 25 years, Jean-Claude Gaudin, died this Monday at the age of 84 in his residence in Saint-Zacharie, in the Var. This monument of French politics leaves behind a contrasting record.
Son of a mason and a worker who became a senator, a minister, but above all mayor of France’s second city for 25 years, Jean-Claude Gaudin, who died at the age of 84, dedicated his life to his two passions : politics and Marseille. This former professor of history and geography in a private college became closer to the Christian right and joined the municipal council at the age of 25 on a left-center right alliance list led by Gaston Defferre (mayor from 1953 to 1986). Having become a deputy, he stood out during the municipal elections of 1983, supporting the Gaullist Jean Hieaux, candidate in Dreux (Eure-et-Loire) at the head of the first RPR-National Front list of France. “We must defeat the socialist-communist adversary“, he then justifies. The beginnings of a pact with the far right, whose votes will allow him, three years later, to win the presidency of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Regional Council. Return on a political journey that leaves a mixed legacy.
If he has held multiple positions, it is the town hall that he covets. In 1995, after two consecutive failures, Jean-Claude Gaudin became the 42nd mayor of Marseille, the role of his life: “Anyone who has not crossed Marseille in Jean-Claude Gaudin’s car, windows down, hearing passers-by say ‘Hello Mr Mayor’, has not known the link between a mayor and his city, this carnal link, visceral“, tells the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher to AFP.
He who dreamed of being the heir of Gaston Deffere carried his legacy and made it last in his way of conceiving power: “By continuing the practices inherited from his predecessor, he exercised politics by distributing client resources and favoring links with certain unions or social groups that were loyal to him.“, analyzes Nicolas Maisetti, political scientist and author of several works on Marseille.
Faced with criticism, the former councilor always praised his great achievements: a Vélodrome stadium, the tunnels, the Mucem and the drop in unemployment when he arrived at town hall. An observation nuanced by Nicolas Maisetti who paints the portrait of a mayor who is more conservative than liberal in his management of changes in the city: “Euroméditerranée is an operation emanating from the State and initiated under his predecessor Robert Vigouroux. He was not comfortable with this way of proceeding nor with the results of these policies“.
Depicted as a lover of Marseille, did the city councilor love the whole city? His opponents have regularly pointed out his abandonment of working-class neighborhoods: “He did not work in favor of the large working-class neighborhoods of the North. He took care of his electorate in the south of the city with, for example, the arrival of the tramway, ” explains Jean Viard, sociologist and former vice-president of Marseille-Provence-Métropole.
It’s rare to see a politician take action so clearly aimed at his voters.
Jean Viard, sociologist and former vice-president of Marseille-Provence-MétropoleFrance 3 Provence-Alpes
An unfortunate sentence attributed to Jean-Claude Gaudin and symptomatic of his abandonment of the northern neighborhoods will remain in the annals: “As long as they kill each other”, the mayor then said according to the memories of some.
His last years in office were criticized for their “immobility” by his adversaries, and even certain allies, and marked by the tragedy of rue d’Aubagne, on November 5, 2018. The shock wave reveals the extent of housing unworthy in a city where 40,000 people live in slums. The associations accuse the town hall of having ignored the alerts. In the process, thousands of people were evacuated from homes declared to be in “imminent danger”. “Like public schools and swimming pools, popular housing was not one of its main concerns. The tragedy of Aubagne will remain an indelible stain. He wasn’t there half an hour after the tragedy“, recalls Jean Viard.
The voice and face of Marseille, the “banter” of a “great man serving the territories”: political figures, particularly on the right, paid tribute on Monday to the former mayor of Marseille Jean-Claude Gaudin. On the set of France 3, Martine Vassal, president of the metropolis, expressed her deep emotion: “I’m losing a second father.” If many say they are marked and trained by the councilor, has Gaudin succeeded in passing the torch? Not according to Nicolas Maisetti: “Every time he named someone as a possible successor, that person lost all chance. There are no heirs or heirs for these great barons. He did not organize the succession”, believes Nicolas Maisseti. “In Marseille, the dream of transmission does not exist, confirms Jean Viard. He was a great mayor who knew how to maintain civil peace and a warm man. It’s a shame he didn’t have more equality.” In December 2020, Jean-Claude Gaudin left town hall for good, raising fears of a deluge for the Marseille right behind him.