Georges Sarre

Who is Georges Sarre?

Georges Sarre is a French politician and leader of the Citizen and Republican Movement.

Sarre was an early supporter of Jean-Pierre Chevènement and François Mitterrand within the new Socialist Party, which he joined at the famous Epinay Congress in 1971. He was the Socialist top candidate in the 1977 Paris municipal election but lost the election by a handful of votes to Jacques Chirac.

He was elected MEP in the 1979 European elections and was elected to the French National Assembly for Paris in 1981. Between 1988 and 1993 he served as Secretary of State for Road and Fluvial Transportation in the governments led by Michel Rocard, Édith Cresson and Pierre Bérégovoy. He later served, between 1995 and 2008 as the Mayor of the 11th arrondissement of Paris.

In the left's 1993 debacle, he was re-elected in Paris' 6th constituency, the only constituency not won by the right in that election. That same year, disagreeing with the Socialist Party's neo-liberal derive, he joined Jean-Pierre Chevènement in creating the Citizens' Movement. The MDC became the Republican Pole in 2002 before adopting its current name, Citizen and Republican Movement.