Mayor of Angers since 2014, re-elected in the first round in 2020, he only held the position of Minister Delegate for Local Authorities for a few weeks. He was then under the supervision of Amélie de Montchalin who had to give up her post after her defeat in the legislative elections.
This ex-senator is one of the right-wing and center mayors deemed Macron-compatible and he was regularly given to enter the government: his name had already been mentioned for the Cohesion of the Territories during the reshuffle which had followed the departure of Gérard Collomb, in October 2018.
“It is sensitive to the themes of ecology, biodiversity, housing and transport and he measures all the delay taken. Now he will have to go and win the arbitrations”, commented Matthieu Orphelin, former head of the list of the left bloc at the regional level in Pays de la Loire and future director general of the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO). “He has as an asset his very good knowledge of the territories”, continued Mr. Orphelin. “We need strong and visible measures in the coming weeks”, he estimated.
Promoter of soft mobility
Sciences-Po graduate, Christophe Béchu began his political career at age 21 as a city councilor from the commune of Avrillé (Maine-et-Loire). President of the general council of this department from 2004 to 2014, he had narrowly failed to take the town hall of Angers in 2008.
This father of three children is a fervent defender of soft mobility. In particular, he transformed the city of Angers into a “smart city”, a smart and connected city with its self-service bicycles and scooters. “The aim is to reduce our water and electricity consumption, to make traffic more fluid, thanks to intelligent road signs, to equip our buried containers with sensors to optimize our household waste collection circuits… In short, anything that will allow us to improve the lives of our fellow citizens and reduce our operating costs,” he explained in 2019.