Huguette Bello | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Bello in 2023 | |
| President of theRegional Council of Réunion | |
| Assumed office 2 July 2021 | |
| Preceded by | Didier Robert |
| President ofFor Réunion | |
| Assumed office 13 May 2012 | |
| Preceded by | Party established |
| Mayor ofSaint-Paul | |
| In office 4 July 2020 – 8 July 2021 | |
| Preceded by | Joseph Sinimalé |
| Succeeded by | Emmanuel Séraphin |
| In office 9 October 2009 – 6 April 2014 | |
| Preceded by | Special delegation |
| Succeeded by | Joseph Sinimalé |
| In office 21 March 2008 – 20 August 2009 | |
| Preceded by | Alain Bénard |
| Succeeded by | Special delegation |
| Member of theNational Assembly forRéunion's 2nd constituency | |
| In office 12 June 1997 – 7 July 2020 | |
| Preceded by | Claude Hoarau |
| Succeeded by | Olivier Hoarau |
| Regional Councillor ofRéunion | |
| Assumed office 18 December 2015 | |
| President | Didier Robert Herself |
| In office 27 March 1992 – 1 March 1993 | |
| President | Camille Sudre |
| Departmental Councillor ofRéunion | |
| In office 7 October 1988 – 27 March 1994 | |
| Constituency | Canton of Saint-Pierre-3 |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Marie-Huguette Antoinette Bello (1950-08-24)24 August 1950 (age 75) Saint-Pierre, Réunion, France |
| Political party | For Réunion (2012–present) |
| Other political affiliations | Communist Party of Réunion (1974–2012) |
| Spouse(s) | Jean-Marie Wisniowycki (divorced) Roland Malet |
| Children | 2 |
| Occupation |
|
Marie-Huguette Antoinette Bello (French pronunciation:[maʁiyɡɛtbɛlo]; born 24 August 1950) is a French politician and teacher fromRéunion who has served aspresident of theRegional Council of Réunion since 2021. Bello is the founder of the left-wingFor Réunion political party, having previously been a member of theCommunist Party of Réunion until the foundation of For Réunion in 2012.
After working as a substitute teacher and preschool principal in Réunion, Bello entered politics in 1983, joining the municipal government ofSaint-Pierre, and later the municipal government ofLa Possession in 1989. In 1988, Bello was elected to theDepartmental Council of Réunion in the1988 election, before returning to the Saint-Pierre municipal government in 1995. Bello entered national politics after being elected to theNational Assembly forRéunion's 2nd constituency in the1997 legislative election. Bello was reelected in the2002,2007,2012, and2017 elections, until resigning her seat in 2020 due to laws regardingdual mandates. Bello was first elected mayor ofSaint-Paul in the2008 municipal elections, and served intermittently as mayor between 2008 and 2021.
Bello was chosen to lead the left-wing electoral alliance in Réunion into the2015 regional election, but was defeated by incumbentDidier Robert. She led the alliance once again in the2021 regional election, and this time was victorious, becoming the president of the Regional Council of Réunion.
Following the2024 legislative election, several leaders of the left-wingNew Popular Front coalition proposed Bello as the coalition's candidate forprime minister of France. TheSocialist Party later chose not to endorse her and she stated that she would no longer pursue the coalition's nomination.
Bello was born on 24 August 1950 inSaint-Pierre, the third most-populous city of the Frenchoverseas region ofRéunion.[1] Her parents Husto and Céline Bello had six children, of which she was their only daughter.[1] Her father worked on a plantation, while her mother was a homemaker. The family resided in the Ravine des Cabris neighborhood of Saint-Pierre. Bello was raised in a practicingRoman Catholic family, and continues to attend weekly mass regularly.[1][2]
Bello was educated at Lycée Roland Garros inLe Tampon, and initially aspired to become a lawyer before pursuing a career in education.[1] After turning 18, Bello became a substitute teacher to support her family financially, and later worked as a preschool principal inSaint-Leu,Saint-Louis, andLe Port in the 1980s.[1] She became political after joining the Union of Women of La Réunion in 1978, of which she was elected president.[1] She later also joined the Front de la Jeunesse autonomiste de La Réunion and theCommunist Party of Réunion.[1] In 1981, she attended theWomen's International Democratic Federation in Czechoslovakia, where she met formerFirst Lady of ChileHortensia Bussi, the first female astronautValentina Tereshkova, and the South African activistDulcie September, which influenced her to pursue politics on her own.[2]
Bello began her career in politics in 1983 with theCommunist Party of Réunion, after becoming a deputy mayor ofSaint-Pierre. She remained in the position until 1989, when she became a deputy mayor ofLa Possession. She was later elected to theDepartmental Council of Réunion in the1988 election, and served until returning to the municipal council of Saint-Pierre following the1995 municipal elections.[3]
In 1997, Bello was selected to stand as a candidate for the Communist Party in the1997 legislative election, standing inRéunion's 2nd constituency. She ultimately was elected to theNational Assembly, making history as the first woman to be elected to French parliament from Réunion.[2] She was reelected in the2002 and2007 legislative elections, defeating Alain Bénard of the center-rightUnion for a Popular Movement (UMP) both times.
After taking her seat in parliament, Bello joined the left-wing Radical, Citizen, and Green parliamentary group, before sitting as anon-attached member in her second term. In 2007, Bello joined theDemocratic and Republican Left group. As a member of parliament, Bello focused on issues related to education andprofessional development, and launched plans to develop a maritimelycée professionnel in Réunion.[4]
In the2012 presidential election, Bello endorsedFrançois Hollande of theSocialist Party.[5] Ahead of the2012 legislative election, Bello was asked by the Communist Party to abandon her constituency and instead stand for election inRéunion's 7th constituency.[6] She rejected the party's request and was subsequently expelled from the party. As a result, she founded theFor Réunion political party and was reelected in the 2nd constituency, defeating the Communist Party candidate in the first round with 67% of the vote, avoiding a runoff.[6][7][8] She later joined theLeft Front political alliance.[9][10][11] In 2013, as a member of parliament, Bello abstained from the parliamentary vote on legalizingsame-sex marriage; however, she later celebrated the first same-sex marriage performed in Réunion later that year, in her capacity as mayor ofSaint-Paul.[12][13][14] In 2016, Bello was one of 56 members of parliament who signed the leftistmotion of no confidence against theEl Khomri law.[15]
Bello endorsedJean-Luc Mélenchon in the2017 presidential election, and was reelected to the National Assembly in the2017 legislative election with the support of the Communist Party,Rézistans Égalité 974, andLa France Insoumise (LFI).[16][17][18] She received 57.1% of the vote in the first round, but was not permitted to be elected outright due to the low voter participation rate, and was later elected in the runoff with 73.6% of the vote.[19][20] In the aftermath of the election, following the general policy proposal ofprime ministerÉdouard Philippe andhis government, Bello voted against confidence in the government.[21] The following year, she joined other left-wing opposition groups in supporting a motion of no confidence in the aftermath of theBenalla affair.[22]
In March 2018, Bello visited the Cimendef Media Library in Saint-Paul withEricka Bareigts, which was recently purchased by the regional government of Réunion. Bello and Bareigts were refused access to part of the building, and subsequently forced their way in with the Cimendef Collective.[23] The Réunion regional government subsequently filed atrespassing complaint against Bello and Bareigts, which the media referred to as the Cimendef affair.[24] In September 2018, Bello and Bareigts were acquitted by theSaint-Denis criminal court, and the regional government appealed the acquittal.[25][26]
In 2020, Bello resigned her seat in the National Assembly following her election as mayor of Saint-Paul, due to new legislation regarding the accumulation ofdual mandates.[27] Following her resignation, she was replaced by her deputyOlivier Hoarau, who soon afterwards also resigned in order to maintain his municipal offices.[28][29] A by-election was then organized to elect a replacement, won byKarine Lebon, supported by For Réunion, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, and LFI.[30][31]
During the2008 municipal election, Bello led a left-wing list inSaint-Paul, which went on to win the election after receiving 50.2% of the vote in the second round runoff, defeating outgoing mayor Alain Bénard.[32] Following the election, Bello was inaugurated as mayor of Saint-Paul, the second most-populous city in Réunion. Upon her election, Bello became the second woman in Réunion to ever be elected as a mayor, followingMarie-Thérèse de Chateauvieux ofSaint-Leu, and one of the few women in France to be elected as mayor of a city with over 100,000 residents. Bénard, having been beaten by just 138 votes, alleged that Bello's list had illegally distributed leaflets to voters the day before the election, in addition to alleging "maneuvers" on the voting lists and "pressuring" at polling places. Bénard appealed the election results at the administrative court ofSaint-Denis, which decided to invalidate the results. Bello appealed the court's decision before theConseil d'État, but her appeal was rejected in August 2009, resulting in the organization of new elections and her removal from the office of mayor.[33] In the interim, the municipal government was led by a special delegation appointed by theprefect of Réunion. New municipal elections were held in the city in October 2009, where Bello once again defeated Bénard and was able to become reinaugurated as mayor.[34]
As mayor, Bello was forced to respond to numerous incidents ofshark attacks on Saint-Paul beaches, particularly following the death of a man following a shark attack in September 2011. The victim's family criticized Bello for her response to the attack, which led to widespread discussion and controversy regarding discrimination againstZoreilles in Réunion.[35][36][37] Bello later lost reelection as mayor in the2014 municipal election, being defeated by the right-wing list of Joseph Sinimalé.[38]
In July 2019, Bello announced that she would again be running in the2020 municipal election in Saint-Paul, and was supported by a coalition of the left-wing, including the Communist Party, Socialist Party,The Ecologists, LFI, and theLeft Party.[39][40][41] She went on to easily win the first round of voting with 36.6% of the vote, ahead of incumbent mayor Sinimalé ofThe Republicans with 19.9% and former mayor Bénard with 14.6%.[42] In the second round runoff, Bello was once again elected mayor after securing 61.8% of the vote.[43][44][45] Upon taking office as mayor for a second term, Bello supported a reduction in the salaries of municipal councillors, which the previous administration had increased.[46] The following year, she introduced freeschool meals for students in the city, the creation of a police station in the rural inland area of the city, the revision of the city's urban planning scheme and deployment of video surveillance by 2026, and the implementation of a policy which would recruit public sector employees with disabilities.[47]
Bello resigned as mayor of Saint-Paul in 2021, following her election as president of theRegional Council of Réunion, and she was replaced by her first deputy mayor Emmanuel Séraphin.[48]
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In 2015, Bello was chosen to lead the left-wing alliance in Réunion into the2015 regional election, making her the left's candidate for president of theRegional Council of Réunion. Her list went on to place second in the first round with 23.8% of the vote, behind incumbentDidier Robert ofThe Republicans with 40.4% of the vote. In the second round runoff, Bello negotiated an alliance between her list andThierry Robert of the centristDemocratic Movement and the center-leftPatrick Lebreton, but she placed second with 47.3% of the vote, losing to Robert.[49][50] Following the conclusion of the election, Bello took her seat in the Regional Council and began to focus on regional politics, resigning her seat in theSaint-Paul municipal council, where she had been in the opposition since her defeat in the 2014 municipal election.[51][52]
Bello once again led the left-wing in the2021 regional election as their presidential candidate in Réunion, campaigning on a platform of fighting against inequalities and granting free access to thecar jaune bus system in Réunion.[53][54][55] In the first round, Bello once again placed second behind incumbent Robert, receiving 20.7% of the vote to Robert's 31.1%, and both ahead ofEricka Bareigts of the Socialist Party with 18.5%.[56] In the second round runoff, Bello negotiated a united left electoral alliance with Bareigts, and went on to defeat Robert after receiving 51.9% of the final vote. Her election resulted in Réunion becoming the only region to flip from right-wing to left-wing in the 2021 regional elections.[57]
Upon taking office as president of the regional council, Bello became the second woman to serve in the position, followingMargie Sudre.[58] As president, she also took office as vice-president of the Régions de France association, an association of the regional heads of government in France.[59][60] In 2022, she was elected to thesupervisory board of the University Hospital of La Réunion for a five-year term.[61][62]
Much like in 2017, Bello endorsed Mélenchon in the2022 French presidential election, and also supported the left-wingNew Ecological and Social People's Union (NUPES) electoral alliance in the2022 legislative election.[63][64] Her party For Réunion aligned itself with LFI, the Socialist Party, and The Ecologists to form the Rassemblement réunionnais, which served as the counterpart to NUPES in Réunion.[65] In the event of a NUPES victory in the election and a left-wing government coming into power in parliament, Bello was discussed by the media as a potentialminister in a government led by Mélenchon.[66] In the2024 European Parliament election in France, Bello was given a symbolic position on the list of LFI, being placed in the unelectable last position, just behind Mélenchon.[67][68]
Following the victory of the left-wingNew Popular Front (NFP) in the2024 legislative election, Bello was cited by members of the coalition as a potential future candidate forprime minister of France. She was proposed as the coalition's candidate for prime minister byFabien Roussel of theFrench Communist Party, which was later supported by LFI and The Ecologists as well.[69][70] Bello's suggested nomination received some criticism for her past abstention from the vote on thelegalization of same-sex marriage in 2013, and the Socialist Party later announced that they would not endorse her candidacy.[70][71] Afterwards, Bello stated that she would no longer pursue the coalition's nomination for prime minister.[72][73]
Bello was first married to Jean-Marie Wisniowycki, from whom she is divorced.[1] She later married Roland Malet, a journalist who previously worked forLes Echos andRFO Réunion.[1] Bello has two children.[1]
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