The death of Bernard Pignerol, State Councilor and loyal to Jean-Luc Mélenchon

State Councillor, co-founder of SOS Racisme, Bernard Pignerol died of cancer Sunday morning, May 21, at the age of 64. Faithful to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he led, in the shadows, a career embracing the major political reorganizations of the French left.

Born in 1958 into a bourgeois family, his childhood and adolescence were dotted with stays in boarding houses which made him bilingual in German and a ski champion. He entered politics in the 1980s, as an activist at UNEF-Renouveau, the communist branch of the student organization.

Without ever adhering to the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), he binds himself with a small band which comes from there, composed in particular of Laurence Rossignol, Julien Dray, Harlem Désir. The latter are preparing to join the Socialist Party and then to found with him SOS Racisme, in 1984. He thus arrives at the socialist left, this current of the PS which Jean-Luc Mélenchon will make a crucible at the time of becoming autonomous from the party.

“An outstanding collaborator”

Freemason, man of networks, he was the one we ask to open doors. “Freemasonry, through the friendships he made there, opened up wide, diverse networks to him, not politically monolithic”, notes Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, who rubbed shoulders with him from the socialist left. In 1996, he entered the ENA, in the Valmy promotion, the same as Bruno Le Maire. And thereby obtains a freedom – or was it prudence? – who will never leave him with regard to politics. One foot in the high administration, another in the parties, at the PS then at La France insoumise (LFI), he cultivates this difference.

Never elected or officially a candidate, he will be marked by two pages in cabinet. The first between 2000 and 2002, as special adviser to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Minister Delegate for Vocational Education in the Jospin government. The second from 2007, when he entered for seven years in the cabinet of Bertrand Delanoë, mayor of Paris, as adviser for international relations. The former mayor remembers“an outstanding collaborator”Who “adored” also be a State Councillor. The two men became very close.

In 2008, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon prepares his departure from the PS, Bertrand Delanoë makes room for the State Councilor on his motion. Bernard Pignerol becomes chairman of the PS conflict commission. He will not officially join Jean-Luc Mélenchon until 2016, in time to participate in the 2017 presidential campaign. As in 2022, he is responsible for creating links between the senior civil service and the candidate. In 2017, he organized the parachuting of Mr. Mélenchon in Marseille for the legislative elections.

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