Delacroix, Céline <br/><br/>
The Fall of Montreuil la Rouge 

 -  2009.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 14 
<br/><br/> In 2008, Dominique Voynet was elected mayor of Montreuil, stealing the town from Jean-Pierre Brard, a former member of the Communist Party and head of the city council for twenty-four years. This turn of events took place in the context of a more general regional movement: the fall of the banlieue rouge or the decline of the communist hold on the Parisian inner suburbs. Nevertheless, the election of this nationally known ecologist also lies in her understanding of the balance of powers in Montreuil and the challenges at stake in the various land settlement projects undertaken in the area. The hardship of a necessary economical conversion following the end of the industrial era, the expectations of a rapidly changing population with a heterogeneous socioeconomic status, and the tactics of alliances on a larger scale clearly showed malfunctions in the former management of the geopolitical characteristics of the town, giving voters the opportunity to seek another kind of territorial management in this election.