City's Mayor

Roland Ries, Senator-Mayor of Strasbourg

A short biography

Born on 11 January 1945 in Niederlauterbach, a small village in northern Alsace.
Entirely educated in Strasbourg. After a degree at the University of Strasbourg, in 1968 he passed the “Agrégation” in French literature, and then taught for many years.

In 1974, he joined the Socialist Party.
In 1983, he was elected to Strasbourg city council.

Between 1989 and 1997, he held the position of First Deputy Mayor os Strasbourg and Vice- President of the Urban Community in charge of transport.

It was in this capacity that he served as leader of the contracting authority for the construction of the Strasbourg’s first two tram lines and chaired the CTS (Compagnie des Transports Strasbourgeois), the city’s public transport body.

His competence in urban transport led to him being appointed President of the Club des Villes Cyclables (cyclable cities club) (1993-1994), then Vice-President of the GART, a grouping of authorities responsible for transport (1996- 2001).

Between 1997 and 2000, he served as Mayor Strasbourg and President of the Urban Community after the Mayor Catherine Trautmann took up the Culture portfolio in the Jospin government.

In 1998, in a bid to help reconcile Alsace with its past, he led a delegation to Oradour-sur-Glane, a village in the Limousin totally destroyed in 1944 by an SS unit which included a number of Alsatians. During this term of office, he also established relations with the Russian city of Tambov, where many Alsatian “Malgré Nous” (unwilling recruits into the German army) died after being captured by the Russians.

In 2000, at the request of Prime Minister Jospin, he wrote a report on the reinforcement of Strasbourg’s European vocation.

Between 2001 and 2008, he sat on the opposition benches of the City council. Between 2001 and 2003, as Chairman of the Urban Transport Commission of the Commissariat Général du Plan (national economic planning agency), he submitted a report to Prime Minister Raffarin proposing a series of guidelines on the organization and financing of urban transport.

In 2003, as a consultant and expert in the public transport field, he worked for the city of Clermont-Ferrand on the introduction of its tram system and for the City of Paris.

In 2004 he was elected to the Senate for a 9-year term. Several of his bills, dealing with urban public transport, car pooling, the future of EADS or the creation of a European globalization adjustment fund have been adopted by the Senate. On 16 March 2008, he was elected Mayor of Strasbourg with almost 60% of the vote.

With his 19 deputies, he signed a solemn oath (Schwörbrief), as was the custom in Strasbourg between the Middle Ages and the French Revolution, a formal written contract with the people, containing the commitments made during the election campaign.

One month later, as promised during the election campaign, he decided not to seek election as President of the Urban Community of Strasbourg leaving the way open for Jacques Bigot, mayor of Illkirch-Graffenstaden. He took over responsibility, as First Vice-President of the Urban Community of Strasbourg, for “Transport” and “European Affairs”.

In October 2008, he was elected Vice-President of the newly formed Senate European Affairs Commission, where he energetically defends the European vocation of his city and the development of the Strasbourg-Ortenau Eurodistrict, a bi-national territorial concept with a special status, for which he is the French spokesman.