lit a candle 4h agoMy landlady called to tell me, she said Etupes lost its mayor. I only know him from the garden plots he helped set up near the Peugeot plant where I rent a room.
Their story
Jean Geney was a French politician of the Rally for the Republic (RPR) who spent decades in public life in the Pays de Montbeliard. He served as a deputy for Doubs's 4th constituency from 1993 to 1997 and as mayor of Etupes from 1989 until he resigned in 2010. He…
Jean Geney was a French politician of the Rally for the Republic (RPR) who spent decades in public life in the Pays de Montbeliard. He served as a deputy for Doubs's 4th constituency from 1993 to 1997 and as mayor of Etupes from 1989 until he resigned in 2010. He died on October 9, 2026, at the age of 87.
He was born on September 26, 1939, in Melisey in the Haute-Saone. He earned a CAP as a fitter at Peugeot's training school in Sochaux and worked there as a methods technician. After military service in Algeria from 1959 to 1962, he trained Red Cross first-aiders and later chaired the Montbeliard section. Between 1973 and 1983 he was a local correspondent for L'Est Republicain. He also played football, coached, and served as a vice-president of US Sochaux, tying him early to the industrial and sporting life of the basin.
His civic work ranged widely: parents' association delegate, CFE-CGC staff representative at Automobiles Peugeot, founder of local reflection clubs, and, from 1988 to 2006, president of the national association Disparition-Espoir, which supported families of missing people. In the National Assembly he helped carry legislation on disappearances in France, an issue that remained central to how colleagues remembered him.
He entered elected politics for the RPR in 1985 as general councillor for the canton of Etupes, a seat he held for 19 years. He chaired the departmental social affairs and housing commission and later served as a delegated president of the general council. From 1989 to 2010 he was mayor of Etupes and a vice-president of the Montbeliard agglomeration community responsible for employment and insertion. Elected deputy in March 1993, he defeated the outgoing Socialist Huguette Bouchardeau and sat for one legislature; in 1997 he lost the seat to Pierre Moscovici. He was departmental RPR president from 1988 to 2002.
He married Marie-France in 1968. They had two children, Anne-Sophie and Jean-Frederic, and four grandchildren. A religious service was held on October 14, 2026, at the Chapelle Sainte-Anne in Exincourt, followed by cremation. Local press remembered him as a lasting figure of Pays de Montbeliard politics, from the Peugeot shop floor to the Palais Bourbon.
Biography adapted from French and English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), L'Est Republicain, ToutMontbeliard.com. Wikipedia ↗
Photos
1Jean Geney
by People Forever
those allotments are still going, my grandfather had one