"Politics? Never!" When Xavière Tiberi, in the early 1960s, learned that her husband, then a young magistrate, had been spotted by a prominent Gaullist and was about to join his team, she was adamant. As the daughter of Corsican pastry chefs with left-wing commitments, politics had only ever shown her only its dark side: in Corte, her hometown, the Radical Socialists always lost. She had no intention of following that path. Yet the young couple eventually gave in. For the rest of his life, Jean Tiberi would do nothing but politics, always with his family. He was successful for a long time, before suffering a resounding final defeat.
A former MP, who was briefly secretary of state and, above all, mayor of Paris, Tiberi died at the age of 90, the 5th Arrondissement town hall said on Tuesday, May 27. The current mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said that in his memory "the flags on all municipal buildings will be lowered to half-mast and books of condolence will be opened at City Hall [...] to allow Parisians to express their affection." With his death, Parisian political life has lost a figure who, although somewhat overshadowed by Jacques Chirac, whom he succeeded at City Hall, and Bertrand Delanoë, who took over after him, enjoyed an exceptionally long career. An "extraordinary career" for an "ordinary man," summed up academic Laurent Godmer in his book dedicated to Tiberi. Sentenced in 2013 for orchestrating a vast electoral fraud scheme, the former mayor will remain the embodiment of an era when the right controlled Paris thanks, in part, to clientelism and illegal methods.
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