Adeline Hazan
Mayor of Reims, France
By Brian Baker, Senior Correspondent

16 June 2010: Adeline Hazan has been mayor of Reims, France since March 2008. She is also President of Reims Metropole, which is the agglomeration authority for the city region. A prominent member of the PS (Parti Socialiste) in France in which she has held several senior positions within its left-wing factions during the last 20 years, Ms Hazan served in the European Parliament for seven years until 2008 representing Eastern France. Mayor Hazan has been shortlisted for the 2010 World Mayor Prize.

She stepped down early from her second term after winning the mayoral election campaign in which she defeated former government minister Catherine Vautrin of the UMP.

Ms Hazan was born in Paris in January 1956 and had a successful career as a judge before becoming a full-time politician. She was a Children’s judge at Nanterre High Court between 1983 and 1994 and at Paris High Court between 1995 and 1997 when she became an advisor to the Minister for Employment and Solidarity in the coalition government.

That Minister was Martine Aubry, mayor of Lille and current Leader of the party, who has been something of a mentor to Adeline Hazan. Since Aubry narrowly defeated former PS presidential candidate Ségolène Royal for the party leadership, Hazan belongs to the ‘Aubryists’ wing of the party.

Whilst at the European Parliament Mayor Hazan established a reputation for her commitment to equal treatment and respect for minorities in Europe. She was a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and served on delegations to the European – Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly and on relations with the Maghreb and Mashree countries.

Mayor Hazan launched the Reims 2020 process in 2009. This is a wide-ranging initiative seeking opinion and involvement from all the stakeholders in the Eastern France city to work together to plan and determine its future. She said at its launch in January 2009 that “Reims, like all regional cities, is experiencing important changes, related to its demography, its new equipment and the vagaries of business.”

“The responsibility of elected officials is two-fold. It is our responsibility to improve the experience of daily life for our citizens in the immediate future providing good public service, dealing with economic crisis and social consequences and preventing anti-social behaviour and physical degradation of public space.

But it is also our responsibility to prepare the future of our city region. We must anticipate better, and understand future opportunities and threats. Therefore we decided to engage our agglomeration in a new development cycle which should be about making Reims more attractive and enabling it to attract more people and more jobs.”

The opening of the high-speed train network LGV Est in 2007 has been an opportunity for Reims to attract inward investment by persuading companies to re-locate from Paris and also for some of its population to commute to the capital. Hazan is focussed on the additional potential it provides to develop new sustainable mixed use quarters around both the Champagne Ardennes Station on the LGV south of the city and Reims station within it.

Adeline Hazan has inherited some important schemes which she is promoting heavily. Notable amongst these is the city’s first modern tramway line on a 12 kms north south corridor which will open for business in April 2011. It is the first tramway scheme in France to be delivered through a public private partnership procurement and concession.

Hazan says it is a fantastic opportunity to rejuvenate the face of the Reims agglomeration and the most important single infrastructure scheme to knit together the city and promote opportunity for all.