Jean-Marie Zoellé (Sierentz, 16 November 1944 – Bonn, 6 April 2020) was a French politician, mayor of Saint-Louis, Haut-Rhin from 2011 until his death in office in 2020.
Career edit
Zoellé was appointed deputy mayor in 1989, under the direction of Jean Ueberschlag, the mayor of Saint-Louis.[1] He kept this role until 2011, when Ueberschlag resigned and he was elected mayor.[1]
In the 2014 Municipal Elections, he was reinstated in the next round with 79.91% of the vote in the first round, then topped a miscellaneous right list.[2][3][4] This was the best score for a town of 20,000 or more inhabitants in Alsace.[2]
On 15 March 2020, Zoellé was re-elected in the municipal elections with 84.03% of the votes cast in the first round, with a turnout of 24.09%.[5] Zoellé then described the decision to hold the local elections as an error in view of the worsening COVID-19 outbreak in France, stating that he would have preferred a postponement till October 2020.[5][6]
Shortly thereafter, Zoellé fell ill with COVID and was then hospitalized in Mulhouse due to respiratory failure.[7] On March 28, he was transferred to St Petrus Hospital in Bonn, Germany.[7][8] He died there on 6 April, aged 75.[9] Other local elected officials in the city have also died of the same illness.[4] He was buried on 14 April 2020.[10]
References edit
- ^ a b "Jean-Marie Zoellé élu maire de Saint-Louis". www.lalsace.fr. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
- ^ a b "Municipales Haut-Rhin. Jean-Marie Zoellé reconduit à la mairie de Saint-Louis". www.dna.fr. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
- ^ "Résultats des élections municipales et communautaires 2014". Retrieved 2020-07-29.
- ^ a b "Haut-Rhin : le maire de Saint-Louis Jean-Marie Zoellé emporté par le Covid-19". leparisien.fr. 2020-04-06. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
- ^ a b "ÉLECTIONS MUNICIPALES. Saint-Louis : Jean-Marie Zoellé réélu". www.lalsace.fr. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
- ^ "POLITIQUE . Pour le maire de Saint-Louis, "on aurait dû s'attendre à cette saloperie !"". www.lalsace.fr. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
- ^ a b "Haut-Rhin : le maire de Saint-Louis, Jean-Marie Zoellé, est mort du coronavirus". Franceinfo. 2020-04-06. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
- ^ "Jean-Marie Zoellé, maire de Saint-Louis en Alsace, est décédé du Covid-19". www.20minutes.fr. 6 April 2020. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
- ^ "Coronavirus: émotion à Lectoure après le décès du maire de Saint-Louis". ladepeche.fr. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
- ^ "Saint-Louis . Décès de Jean-Marie Zoellé : "Il aimait la ville et ses habitants"". www.dna.fr. Retrieved 2020-07-29.