Jean-Louis Masson: 50 years of political life, from Grosdidier to Jacquat via Juppé

Former deputy and senator Jean-Louis Masson, also a regional advisor, takes stock of his commitment in the evening of his political life in Moselle.

For more than half a century, he lived through Moselle political life without ever really fitting into the boxes. Elected general councilor at just 28 years old, deputy for nearly twenty years then senator for twenty-two years, Jean-Louis Masson is today publishing a book testament, Half a century of public engagementin which he retraces fifty years of battles, alliances, betrayals and major projects in Moselle.

At 79 years old, the former parliamentarian, whose mandate as general advisor which ends in 2028 will be the last, assures that he wanted to leave a mark. “I said to myself: I have finished my political life, it would be good to retrace things,” he explains. An approach fueled by a personal observation: “I know very little about my grandparents. They spoke little about the war, the expulsion, the difficulties. » In this work of almost 600 pages, Masson recounts his journey as much as the political evolution of Moselle since the 1970s. And true to his reputation, he spares no one.

The former MP claims an atypical career path. Elected very young “without a political apparatus” behind him, he recalls having been the youngest member of the general council for a long time, and having “never been beaten as a deputy” in all his elections “without party support “.

Although he sat in the RPR for a long time, rather close to the right wing of the party, Jean-Louis Masson recounts a complicated relationship with the national general staffs. “I had the competence, an ability to win the elections, but I was missing something: I do not have the temperament to suck the boots of Mr. Juppé or Mr. Tartampion. HAS”

A claimed independence which, according to him, would have closed certain doors to him. “The RPR should have supported me in other elections. They never supported me. » Since the 1990s, the former senator says he has gradually broken with his historic political family. Today, he believes that the National Rally “represents a little of what the RPR was in the 1975s”, before drifting “towards the left”. Supporting Nicolas Dupont-Aignant then Marine Le Pen in previous presidential elections, he chaired the support committee for Etienne Anstett (RN) for the elections in Metz.

The book also largely covers the historical fractures of the Metz right, in particular its conflict with François Grosdidier, which the two men have maintained for more than 30 years in the media and in court. Masson says he helped the current mayor of Metz get his start in politics at the start of the 1980s (“he didn’t have the baccalaureate, he was unemployed and at the time I pushed him”), before their relations suddenly deteriorated before the municipal elections of 1989. “Politics is made of betrayals,” he says, retracing this political period and the divisions between the different figures of the Metz right of the time.

The former parliamentarian also returns to his surprise rapprochement with Denis Jacquat between the two rounds of these municipal elections in Metz in 1989, although after an extremely tense campaign. “We had to beat Jean-Marie Rausch,” he sums up today without regret. However, the rapprochement with the UDF deputy did not go as planned. “The RPR president of the general council supported Dr. Jacquat. You can imagine how much the party supported me.” Following the ultimatum given to his competitor to merge the two lists, Masson discovered that the opponent “has already negotiated with Grosdidier. He was openly campaigning against me.”

Beyond political quarrels, Jean-Louis Masson claims several major achievements in Moselle. The main one, according to him: the development of the Ennery industrial center. When he became general councilor of the canton of Vigy, the project had existed for years but remained virtual. He claims to have accelerated land management and promoted the installation of the industrial site which will notably host a Peugeot Citroën factory.

“At the time, it was a desert. Fifteen years later, there were 7,000 to 8,000 jobs,” he recalls. Another file of which he says he is proud: the route of the TGV Est. He claims to have played an important role in avoiding an exclusive passage through Nancy and defending a balanced route between Metz and Nancy.

Asked about today’s Moselle, Jean-Louis Masson is harsh. He deplores “a certain immobility” and the absence of major departmental political figures. In his retrospective view, however, he cites several personalities who, according to him, have left a lasting mark on the territory: Raymond Mondon, Pierre Messmer, and even Jean-Eric Bousch, the former mayor of Forbach.

His career has also been marred by controversial outings, notably on immigration or even against the NOTRe law, but also by legal disputes, from the cancellation of his campaign in 1997 for financing the campaign of a competitor to the convictions for defamation of the former mayor of Woippy. After fifty years spent behind the scenes of Moselle power, Jean-Louis Masson above all delivers a disenchanted but very personal vision of politics: a world of rare loyalties, permanent internal battles, but also structuring projects.