The elected official (Les Républicains, LR) Fabrice Pannekoucke, 49, was elected president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional council on Thursday 5 September, obtaining 132 of the 135 votes of the right-wing majority group of 204 regional councillors. He was nicknamed by his predecessor Laurent Wauquiez, 49, who was forced to leave his executive post under the law on the non-accumulation of mandates, after being elected deputy for Haute-Loire, on 7 July, in the second round of early legislative elections.
His succession came at the end of a discreetly prepared process. The election of the mayor of Moûtiers (Savoie) was announced the day before to the elected officials of the LR group and came as a surprise. Until now the tenth vice-president in charge of agriculture, the elected official from the Tarentaise valley was not among the candidates considered to succeed the president of the region, in office since 2016, re-elected in 2021. The first vice-president – president, Stéphanie Pernod, often invited to preside over the hemicycle in the absence of Laurent Wauquiez, or Nicolas Daragon, second vice-president and mayor of Valence, were the most cited in the predictions.
“I have full confidence in Fabrice. This election was not easy. He is a beautiful personality. He is a well-established local elected official. He corresponds to what I want for the region.”Laurent Wauquiez justified this by making it clear that the appointment of his successor was his personal decision. “He has had admirable success in the missions I entrusted to him, in tourism or agriculture. We will continue to work together and I will be at his side to succeed.”added the outgoing president, visibly determined to closely follow regional politics.
Continuity and fidelity
The outgoing president and his designated successor carefully organised the handover. Arriving together, they sat side by side in the chamber, deviating from the alphabetical order of their placement. During the long sequence of secret voting, they left the chamber, with Laurent Wauquiez holding his successor by the shoulder. Once installed in the presidency, Fabrice Pannekoucke immediately paid tribute to his predecessor. “I know what I owe him and what the region owes him. Under his leadership, under his authority, we have become the best-managed region in France.”“declared the new president of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, to long minutes of applause from the elected representatives of the regional majority, who surrounded Laurent Wauquiez with their hands on their hearts.
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