"We're in the starting blocks": Former OL boss Jean-Michel Aulas is ready to run for mayor of Lyon

From football to Lyon mayoralty. This Thursday, September 4, former OL boss Jean-Michel Aulas announced that he would soon formalize his candidacy for mayor of Lyon. He will enter the electoral battle "without a party label" but with the support of the Les Républicains (LR) party .

"I am taking responsibility in a few days to embark on this adventure, without any political affiliation, but with the support of the most dynamic people," declared the 76-year-old business leader during a press briefing in Lyon.

"We are in the starting blocks," he continued alongside the leader of the Republican deputies, Laurent Wauquiez, and the LR mayor of the 2nd arrondissement of Lyon, Pierre Oliver, who is withdrawing his own candidacy to support him.

"The pride of Lyon," said Laurent Wauquiez

The man who chaired Olympique Lyonnais for 36 years embodies "Lyonnais pride" and "we are convinced that he is the one who can lead this battle to put our city of Lyon back on the right track," said Laurent Wauquiez to justify this rally.

Highly critical of Green elected officials on social media, Jean-Michel Aulas announced in February 2025, in the pages of Le Figaro , that he was "considering" running in the municipal elections of March 2026 against the outgoing Green mayor Gregory Doucet, who is seeking a second term .

In the absence of a candidate who was unanimously supported in their camp, a large number of local LR and Macronist officials immediately rallied behind him , banking on his notoriety to retake the city.

The entrepreneur, who made his fortune selling management software, has also consulted with many national leaders such as former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who endorsed him in June, and former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

“Bring together all the people who are fed up with the current situation”

"I realized that to try to transform things, to win on the ground (...) we had to be united," he said this Thursday to explain his tempo, saying he wanted to bring together personalities ranging "from the center left to the right."

"My aim is to bring together all people of goodwill who are fed up with the current situation," he continued. After describing Lyon as a "dirty, tagged" city, he declared that he wanted to "recreate what we knew before, that is to say, a Lyon that is an exemplary model of city life."

While he has not yet revealed his platform or the names of those who will appear on his list, JMA has made some initial promises in recent months. Symbolically, he has pledged to give up his mayoral allowance.

His detractors were quick to accuse the 310th richest person in France (according to Challenge magazine) of demagoguery.

The promise to extend free transport

Keen to give himself a more social colouring in a city which gave its four parliamentary seats to the left in July, he then attacked the ecologists' favourite terrain: transport, notably promising to extend free buses, metro and trams for the people of Lyon.

And to satisfy the right, he promised to install more video surveillance cameras and a municipal transport police force, accusing the environmentalists of having allowed violence to increase since their election to the city and metropolitan areas in 2020.

Even though he always slipped in a "if I am a candidate" , Jean-Michel Aulas seemed each time closer to launching himself. "I won't make you wait very long" , he declared on June 19. At the beginning of July, he finally asked for "a little patience" , saying he wanted first to help OL to push back the threat of administrative demotion . But "today, I want to give back to Lyon what Lyon gave me" , he immediately added.

Now that he's launched, he still has to convert his popularity into a ballot . While he enjoys a better image than Grégory Doucet, he would only beat him in the first round (24% against 22%) in the case of a divided left, according to an Elabe BFM poll published in May.