The funeral of Gérard Collomb, who died this Saturday, November 25 following stomach cancer, will take place at Saint-Jean Cathedral in Lyon this Wednesday.
[Updated November 26 at 1:05 p.m.] He was the “baron” of Lyon. Gérard Collomb died this Saturday, November 25, at the age of 76, we learned from Lyon Mag. He announced on September 16, 2022, on the social network X, that he had stomach cancer. His death occurred “during a short period of coma”, said his wife, who also said that the former Minister of the Interior “wished, when it became obvious that his illness would not could be improved by any anti-cancer treatment, benefit from deep sedation which allowed him to pass away peacefully with his family.
According to information from BFMTV Lyon, the funeral of Gérard Collomb will take place this Wednesday, November 29, at Saint-Jean Cathedral in Lyon at 11 a.m. However, before his funeral, according to his wife, Caroline Collomb, “the people of Lyon [will be able to go] to pay their respects in front of his coffin”, even if the details will be communicated later.
His state of health had deteriorated considerably in recent days, and he had been taken care of by the oncology department of Lyon Sud hospital. Many personalities, starting with Emmanuel Macron, have paid tribute to the former minister. The President of the Republic spoke of “a statesman who embodied republican ascension and authority”.
In a press release, the Macron couple greeted “with sorrow, the memory of a dear friend, of a mayor who dedicated his exceptional talents of dialogue and imagination to building a city in his image, of a man of State which embodied republican ascension and authority.” A position shared by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne: “Tireless servant of the State, republican, companion from the very beginning of the President: Gérard Collomb has served the French all his life, as mayor of Lyon, as Minister of the Interior. We have lost a great man.”
A member of the Socialist Party since its creation in 1969, Gérard Collomb was one of the first to follow Emmanuel Macron before the 2017 presidential election. And François Hollande wrote in a press release: “He contributed to the refoundation of the PS with François Mitterrand then Pierre Mauroy. He thought he would continue his social-democratic commitment by choosing to follow another path.”
Weakened politically by the Benalla affair, “difficult to live with”, according to him, this “faithful among the faithful” had resigned with a bang in October 2018 from his post as Minister of the Interior to resume his functions in Lyon, which he had ceded to two of his lieutenants. His successors at Place Beauvau also paid tribute to him: “The Ministry of the Interior and the police have lost a great minister and a great defender of their actions. Gérard Collomb will have been a great servant of the general interest and will mark the History of Place Beauvau”, wrote Gérald Darmanin on Ministry of the Interior, [who] knew how to inspire and write a new page for the country.”
The Senate paid tribute to him on Saturday evening by observing a moment of contemplation.
“This city, it took me twenty years to conquer it, twenty years to transform it, we cannot leave it like that,” he said in 2020 during an electoral campaign marked by his alliance with the right between the two towers. At odds with Macronie, whose “lack of humility” he denounces, criticized on the left where he is accused of right-wing drift for his anti-terrorism law and his asylum/immigration bill, he finally finds himself pushed back onto the benches of municipal opposition by the Greens who won both the town hall and the metropolis of Lyon, of which Gérard Collomb was the first president between 2015 and 2017.
The Lyon baron had disappeared from the local political scene since he himself announced his illness. At the head of the city, this former associate professor of classics transformed Lyon with the development of the banks of the Rhône and the quays of the Saône, as well as the construction of the eco-district of La Confluence, located to the south of the city. The Lyonnais also owe him the Confluences museum and the city’s “skyline” with the Incity and Oxygène towers. But also Les Nuits Sonores, an essential musical festival on the electronic scene, as well as the illuminations of the traditional Festival of Lights.
