The former minister and Mayor of Richelieu ends his local political career. A chapter of thirty years of his life which closes, not without emotion.
Emotion sequence. The speech of the ceremony of the wishes of the Mayor of Richelieu, Saturday, ended with a long ovation of a room, standing in front: a Hervé Novelli who could no longer hide his tears. And many friends of the former minister also took out the handkerchiefs, sharing a highlight: the end of a chapter of more than thirty years.
It must be said that memories jostled in the memory of the one who had arrived in Richelieu, after the sudden death of his father, at the end of 1982, to take over the small family business of manufacturing prostheses, which he will manage and develop during a quarter of century.
Pass the torch
Even if he managed to lead a departmental, then national, political career, spending even three and a half years in government, the creator of the statute of the self-entrepreneur will always have kept in his heart his adopted commune, there engaging for four terms, as an advisor, then an assistant, then a mayor since 2008.
Unfinished dream of the famous cardinal, Richelieu is a city on a human scale, which seduces with its "magic side", but requires a lot of energy, to keep its charm and its tourist appeal. And, at the time of the balance sheet, Hervé Novelli has many memories, he who waited for the completion of the renovation of the village hall to organise his vows ceremony, the day after the construction site was closed. As if to tick one more box in the list of achievements.
And, even at a time when the countryside is depopulating, it is not easy to act in a municipality of 1,800 inhabitants, with 118 monuments registered or classified, the balance sheet turns out to be positive, especially without an increase in taxes. Richelieu, who had already succeeded in creating, after Avoine certainly (but without the same financial windfalls), an innovative multidisciplinary health center, has just seen his deviation finally completed, the fruit of a battle of almost fifteen years.
The greenway connecting Richelieu to Chinon will also remain an important achievement, such as the construction of the new EHPAD, to cite only a few significant files of this mandate.
On the strength of this assessment, Hervé Novelli therefore decided to bow out, locally agrees, he who has some other responsibilities, in particular for the development of wine tourism. But, having passed the milestone of the seventies spring, he feels the time has come to pass the torch, aware that there is still much to do.
It is certainly not a farewell. "I will always be available to serve Richelieu," he had to conclude, moved. Very touched.
