Martine Vassal
President of the Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis
Assumed office
6 September 2018[lower-alpha 1]
Preceded byJean-Claude Gaudin
President of the Departmental Council of Bouches-du-Rhône
Assumed office
2 April 2015
Preceded byJean-Noël Guérini
First Vice-President of the Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis
In office
17 March 2016 – 20 September 2018
PresidentJean-Claude Gaudin
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byRoland Blum
Deputy Mayor of Marseille
In office
25 March 2001 – 2 May 2015
MayorJean-Claude Gaudin
Municipal councillor of Marseille
Assumed office
18 March 2001
Constituency4th sector
Personal details
Born (1962-03-29) 29 March 1962
Marseille, France
Political partyThe Republicans (2015–present)
Other political
affiliations		Liberal Democracy (2001–2002)
Union for a Popular Movement (2002–2015)

Martine Vassal (née Gilles, 29 March 1962) is a French politician who has presided over the Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis since 2018. A member of The Republicans (LR), she succeeded Jean-Claude Gaudin in office, who resigned to focus on his term as Mayor of Marseille.

Vassal previously served as Deputy Mayor of Marseille under Gaudin from 2001 to 2015, when she was elected to the presidency of the Departmental Council of Bouches-du-Rhône, a position she still holds. She has represented the canton of Marseille-10 in the departmental council since redistricting in 2015, previously holding the canton of Marseille – Saint-Giniez seat from 2002, when she won the by-election to replace Dominique Tian, who had resigned following his election to the National Assembly.

Biography

Personal life

Martine Vassal is the daughter of Élie Gilles, an industrialist.[1] She studied at the Lycée Montgrand,[2][3] then was admitted to the École supérieure de commerce in Marseille.[4][5]

In 1987, after two years of international training, she took over the head of the family textile company.[6] At the same time, it was a part of several associations of executives and management.

Political career

In 2001, Vassal was elected to the municipal council of Marseille on the list led by incumbent Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin,[7][8] of which she became the deputy at city hall. She was delegated to public sites, food and fairground markets and fairs, then, from 2008, to the quality of the city, public space, cleanliness, sites and markets, urban management and advertising. In 2014, she was entrusted with the delegation of international and European relations. She left her position as a deputy in 2015.

She was also a community advisor at the Marseille Provence Métropole urban community,[9] where she was, from 2008 to 2014, president of the "eco-responsible agglomeration" commission, in charge of waste, water and waste recycling issues.

In 2002, she was elected the departmental councillor of Bouches-du-Rhône for the canton of Marseille-10.[4] Re-elected in 2008, she was appointed president of the group "L'avenir du 13" (UMP-UDI), then in the opposition.

Within the UMP, Martine Vassal was appointed deputy departmental secretary of the UMP of Bouches-du-Rhône in 2006 and national secretary of the UMP in 2013.

As the leader of the UMP for the 2015 departmental elections, she was elected in the canton of Marseille-10 while the right obtained an absolute majority in the departmental council.[10] On 2 April 2015, she was elected president of the departmental council. The first woman to be elected to this function, she defeated incumbent Jean-Noël Guérini;[11][12] it was also the first time in a century that the right-wing had led the department.[13]

She supported Nicolas Sarkozy for the 2016 Republican presidential primary.[14] As a part of her campaign, she was appointed national speaker in charge of integration. In view of the 2017 presidential election, she supported the candidacy of François Fillon[15] until the first round.

In January 2015, following a report from the regional chamber of accounts, the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) opened an investigation into suspicions of favoritism and illegal taking of interests concerning Martine Vassal and Loïc Fauchon, Chairman of the Société des Eaux de Marseille (SEM, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Veolia).[16][17] Her home and office were being searched in November 2015.[18] Two years later, in 2017, she was summoned by the police to be heard on this case on which she had declared in 2014: "It was the Marseille Provence Métropole services which carried out the analysis and we followed their recommendations".[19] In 2020, no judicial information was open.[20]

In March 2016, Martine Vassal was elected first vice-president of the Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolis, with economic strategy and attractiveness as a delegation.[21] From 6 September 2018, after the resignation of Jean-Claude Gaudin, she assumed the interim presidency of the metropolis.[22] She was elected head of the metropolis on September 20. She led the merger project between the metropolis and the Bouches-du-Rhône department proposed by Édouard Philippe's government, a project postponed since.[23]

Martine Vassal announced her candidacy for the 2020 municipal elections in Marseille on 13 September 2019.[24] On November 27, she received the support of the Republicans, by 27 votes against 11 for Senator Bruno Gilles.[25] In the first round, on 15 March 2020, LR's list came in the second position with 22.3% of the votes, behind Michèle Rubirola.[26] Martine Vassal was defeated by the latter in the second round, on 28 June 2020, its lists obtaining 30.8% of the votes cast.[27] On July 2, she withdrawed her candidacy for the election of the mayor of Marseille in favor of deputy Guy Teissier.[28] Shortly after, she was re-elected as the head of the metropolis of Aix-Marseille-Provence.[29]

Controversies

Relation with La Provence

In November 2019, Mediapart published an investigation into the financing of the regional daily La Provence by the Departmental Council of Bouches-du-Rhône after Vassal took the office at the head of the community. The newspaper would have received more than 1.2 million euros in 2018 from the departmental council and the metropolis of Aix-Marseille-Provence.[30] Provence replied that "these so-called subsidies are in fact only the purchase of advertising inserts, a common fact for regional daily press titles".[31] Other fundings were also raised such as that of BPI France or of the Française des jeux.

Fraud charge proxy

Before the second round of municipal elections in 2020, two running mates of Martine Vassal were filmed by a France 2 journalist, proposing illegal proxies in the 4th and 6th arrondissements of the city, avoiding going to the commissariat.[lower-alpha 2][32][33] An elected official explained that the signature of the principal is not even requested since “the commissariat punches all the proxies that are brought to them”.[34] Martine Vassal noted that "if the facts are true, they are unacceptable and evoke a “cabal of Parisian journalists”.[34] Her campaign premises were raided as part of a preliminary investigation.[35] LR sector mayor Yves Moraine did not deny having proposed such powers of attorney, declaring: “We thought that the conditions for verifying identity would be relaxed given the health situation. And that a simple signature would suffice”.[36]

Distinctions

In 2012, she was elevated to the rank of Knight of the National Order of Merit.[37]

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ↑ Ad interim, 6 – 20 September 2018.
  2. ↑ Usually, to have a proxy drawn up, the officials go to the commissariat, in front of a judicial police officer who verifies their identity. But in this case, the candidates proposed by telephone to establish proxies without going to the commissariat, in defiance of the electoral code.

References

  1. ↑ "Martine Vassal, nouvelle présidente des Bouches-du-Rhône". France Bleu (in French). 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
  2. ↑ "Qui suis-je ?" (in French). Martine Vassal. Archived from the original on 2020-02-17. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
  3. ↑ "La cité mixte Daumier mieux sécurisée". departement13.fr (in French). Retrieved 2021-07-31.
  4. 1 2 "MARTINE VASSAL". Emerging Valley. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
  5. ↑ "Martine Vassal, une battante née bélier". Gomet (in French). 2015-03-29. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
  6. ↑ "'Margaret Thatcher' ou 'la belle Martine', qui est Martine Vassal?". 20 Minutes (in French). Retrieved 2021-07-31.
  7. ↑ "Résultats des élections municipales 2008". mobile.interieur.gouv.fr (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  8. ↑ "Municipales2020 - Martine Vassal - Marseille". Institut Montaigne - Municipales 2020 (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  9. ↑ "Communauté d'agglomération Agglopole Provence . Martine Vassal réélue présidente de la Métropole Aix-Marseille-Provence". agglopole-provence.fr. Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  10. ↑ "Résultats des élections départementales 2015 Marseille (13) 1er tour". L'Express (in French). 2015-03-23. Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  11. ↑ "Bouches-du-Rhône: l'UMP Martine Vassal met fin à la présidence Guérini". Le Point (in French). 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  12. ↑ "Bouches-du-Rhône : l'UMP Martine Vassal tourne la page Guérini". Le Monde (in French). 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  13. ↑ "Martine Vassal officiellement élue présidente de la métropole Aix-Marseille". 20 Minutes (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  14. ↑ "Vassal et Muselier dans l'équipe de Sarkozy". LaProvence.com (in French). 2016-09-01. Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  15. ↑ "EXCLU - La présidente des Bouches-du-Rhône soutient François Fillon, mais "n'a pas besoin d'être première de la classe"". France Bleu (in French). 2017-03-22. Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  16. ↑ "Marché de l'eau à Marseille : Martine Vassal, présidente du conseil départemental des Bouches-du-Rhône, en garde à vue". France Bleu (in French). 2017-06-22. Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  17. ↑ "Contrats de l'eau : MPM entre connivence et amateurisme". Marsactu (in French). 2015-08-21. Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  18. ↑ "Soupçons de favoritisme sur les contrats de l'eau : perquisitions chez Vassal". Marsactu (in French). 2015-11-20. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  19. ↑ "Marché de l'eau à Marseille: Martine Vassal, présidente du CD 13, sortie de garde à vue". France 3 Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  20. ↑ "Marchés de l'eau à Marseille : une enquête menée au compte-gouttes". lamarseillaise.fr (in French). 2017-06-24. Archived from the original on 2020-01-02. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  21. ↑ "Martine Vassal, symbole du dynamisme à la provençal". Assemblée des départements de France (in French). 2017-10-05. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  22. ↑ "Jean-Claude Gaudin met sur orbite Martine Vassal". Le Point (in French). 2018-09-04. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  23. ↑ "Succession de Gaudin: poker menteur à Marseille". L'Express (in French). 2018-09-20. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  24. ↑ "L'annonce "audacieuse" de Martine Vassal". La Tribune (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  25. ↑ Harounyan, Stéphanie; Albertini, Dominique. "Investiture à Marseille : Martine Vassal adoubée, Bruno Gilles ne désarme pas". Libération (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  26. ↑ "Municipales à Marseille : Michèle Rubirola devance Martine Vassal". Le Point (in French). 2020-03-15. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  27. ↑ "Résultats élections Marseille (13055) : élections régionales et départementales 2021". Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  28. ↑ "Municipales à Marseille : Martine Vassal se retire, LR présentera le député Guy Teissier pour être maire". Le Figaro (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  29. ↑ "Martine Vassal réélue à la tête de la métropole Aix-Marseille-Provence". 20 Minutes (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  30. ↑ Mauduit, Laurent. "Marseille: "La Provence" a passé un pacte avec la candidate LR à la mairie". Mediapart (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  31. ↑ "Municipales : Médiapart dénonce "un pacte" entre Martine Vassal et le journal "La Provence"". France 3 Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  32. ↑ "ENQUÊTE FRANCE 2. Municipales : à Marseille, une candidate LR propose des procurations sans passer par le commissariat". Franceinfo (in French). 2020-06-11. Retrieved 2021-07-29.
  33. ↑ Cuordifede, Célia (2020-06-11). "Marseille : malgré la loi, deux candidates LR proposent des "procurations simplifiées" sans signature". Marianne (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  34. 1 2 "Municipales 2020 : à Marseille, perquisition au local de la tête de liste LR, après des accusations de fraude aux procurations". Le Monde (in French). 2020-06-13. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  35. ↑ Leforestier (Marsactu), Jean-Marie. "A Marseille, une enquête préliminaire pour fraude à la procuration accable la droite". Mediapart (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  36. ↑ "Municipales : perquisitions au QG de campagne de Martine Vassal pour procurations frauduleuses". France 3 Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (in French). Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  37. ↑ "Décret du 2 mai 2012 portant promotion et nomination". legifrance.gouv.fr (in French). Retrieved 2021-07-29.
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