Jean Royer

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Jean Royer
Mayor of Tours
In office 1959–1995
Preceded by	Marcel Tribut
Succeeded by	Jean Germain
Personal details
Born	(1920-10-31)31 October 1920 Nevers, France
Died	25 March 2011(2011-03-25) (aged 90) Chambray-lès-Tours, France
Political party	RPR

Jean Royer (31 October 1920 – 25 March 2011) was a French catholic and conservative politician, former Minister, and former Mayor of Tours.

Biography

Mayor of Tours

Born in Nevers, Nièvre, Royer was at first a teacher. In 1958 he was elected as a right-wing deputy from the Indre-et-Loire department, representing the city of Tours. While he was close to the Gaullist UNR, he did not join a parliamentary group. In 1959, he was elected to the office of Mayor of Tours, with the support of Charles de Gaulle.

In the 1960s he led an expansion of the city, annexing the cities of Sainte-Radegonde-en-Touraine and de Saint-Symphorien in order to increase the surface area available for more constructions. His main accomplishment was the construction, in an area of four kilometres along the river

Described within his own party as an

He stood as the candidate of moral order, and polled up to 7%. However, his candidacy became a fiasco. He multiplied gaffes: he resigned from the government, unlike Valéry Giscard d'Estaing; he installed his headquarters in Tours and not in Paris, and refused to take the plane during the campaign. His meetings were also a fiasco, in Toulouse the majority of his listeners were young students who laughed at him and yelled obscene sexual slogans. A young woman even went to the extent of undressing in front of the camera.

He won 810,540 votes, or 3.17%. Most of his votes came from Indre-et-Loire, where he broke 30%.

Later life

After the presidential fiasco, Royer returned to

In the 1995 local elections, he was defeated in his bid for re-election in a three-way race with the PS and RPR. The PS Jean Germain was elected.

In the 2002 presidential election he supported the candidacy of Jean-Pierre Chevènement, before retiring from politics. In 2004 and 2007 he was hospitalized for "serious" health issues. In October 2013 a statue of Royer was erected in Place de la Liberte, Tours. The cost of 44,000 Euros being raised by public subscription.

Bibliography

• Michel Jouet et Jean-Jacques Martin, Jean Royer, un réformisme autoritaire, Éditions sociales, 1975.
• Christian Garbar, Jean Royer 1974: objectif Élysée, Blois, Le clairmirouère du temps, 1981.