A few days before his sixtieth birthday--he was born on 27 December 1961--LSAP minister Dan Kersch chose to leave the government in the middle of his term of office, not waiting for the parliamentary elections, scheduled for October 2023. The minister who joined the government in 2013 as part of the DP-Dei Gréng-LSAP coalition as Minister of Home Affairs, and Minister of Public Service and Administrative Reform will therefore leave his post at the beginning of January after eight years of service in the government.

The current Deputy Prime Minister--since 4 February 2020, following the resignation of Etienne Schneider --, Minister of Labour, Employment and Social and Solidarity Economy, and Minister of Sport, had announced last September his choice not to run as head of the list for the next legislative elections, but had remained evasive as to his political future, and whether he would remain in office until then. Part of the answer is now known.

Over the years, his outspokenness and commitment have in any case left few people indifferent.

"I can apologise for many things, but not for my opinion, and I'm not going to do that,” Kersch summed up his approach to politics in one answer. It was 14 April 2020, at the height of the first wave of the health crisis, and the Labour Minister had to put out a fire he himself had lit on Facebook. He at the time had implied that self-employed people who would have benefited well before the crisis should not benefit from public money and therefore from the aid released by the government to support businesses forced to reduce or suspend their activities because of the containment. Kersch faced backlash from employers and many self-employed people--including young artisans--who had denounced the unacceptable argument.

"Not there to gain sympathy”

The increased social minimum wage, an extra day's paid holiday and a legal public holiday on 9 May also bear his stamp. Among his most recent achievements, Kersch presented three bills in September: one on moral harassment at work, another on the right to disconnect and a third on short-time working.

In an interview with the Municipalities Guide in 2018, Kersch explained that he was "not there to win sympathy, but to get things done. I had a clear roadmap, I followed it. In my own style... Sometimes I offended, pushed around out of impatience. If I offended, it was in the spirit of getting things done. I was active and pragmatic.”

A communist allegiance

Can remnants of his communist allegiance be found in his comments on his departure? His youth had indeed been influenced by this current, both in his family and in his friendships. As the Land recalled in an article on 14 May, in the 1980s, the young Kersch had as companions the future mayor of Esch, Vera Spautz, the future president of the OGBL, André Roeltgen (Dan Kersch's wife works for the union) and one of the linchpins of what was to become the Kulturfabrik and future co-president of déi Gréng, Christian Kmiotek. In 1990, however, he left the KPL because of his disillusionment with the political developments in the USSR and Eastern Europe.

There are still visible markers from this founding period in the positioning of the man who became Deputy Prime Minister of the DP-LSAP-Déi Gréng government on 4 February 2020, following the resignation of Etienne Schneider. One year later and while the consequences of Covid-19 continue to weigh on the economy, he proposes to make the winners of the crisis pay via a selective tax, the modalities of which remain unclear to this day. The idea has not been followed up. However, it led to unease within the majority and to an outcry from employers' representatives, including a childhood neighbour of the outgoing Minister of Labour, Michel Reckinger, who has just taken over the presidency of the Union des Entreprises Luxembourgeoises (UEL) after the departure of Nicolas Buck.

Kersch blows hot and cold. His outspokenness and natural penchant for punchlines sometimes overshadow a fundamental action that proved decisive at the height of the crisis, when short-time working had to be quickly made available to prevent many companies from having to close their doors. "Since the beginning of the crisis, €600m have been paid to companies in the form of short-time working allowances. Also, the government has made the judicious choice to raise the floor of the short-time working allowance from 80% to 100% of the minimum social wage, which has certainly contributed to avoiding the precariousness of many households and to maintaining their purchasing power,” summarised the Minister in a white paper he signed last summer.

From convictions to reforms

Kersch, the man of conviction, the statesman. If the crisis has confirmed his commitments, it has also confirmed the respect of several observers and actors of political and public life. Following the example of Nicolas Buck, then president of the UEL, who declared in Le Land on 23 October 2020: "He is a real minister, a real leader... and he knows his files. (...) Beyond his faux pas on Facebook, he was decisive during the crisis. I have a lot of respect for him."

"The Minister of Labour, Dan Kersch, is from the South, and so are all the trade unionists," noted Nicolas Buck in the January 2021 edition of Paperjam, recalling his youth spent on the football field. "I was familiar with their mentality and the need for respect - which they deserve - when dealing with someone 'from the city'. I like that mentality, that they say things to each other and say them clearly.”

Dan Kersch was often said to be very close to the OGBL. While relations with André Roeltgen were friendly and strong, this was less the case with Nora Back. " We are not interested in politicians, but in the policies they implement for the benefit of employees and households. That's the most important thing for us," she says. There have even been frank disagreements: "Dan Kersch took some good decisions, such as facilitating short-time working at the beginning of this health crisis. But there were others that we didn't agree with at all, such as the increase in working hours in the health sector," the OGBL president said. "There have been good times and bad times, but the health situation has not made things any easier," concludes Nora Back.

The crisis would almost make us forget it, but one of the first major issues of the DP-LSAP-Déi Gréng government was the separation of church and state, carried by a wind of change following the early elections in October 2013 and the relegation of the CSV to the opposition.

The Minister of the Interior, Kersch, was responsible for the operational part of the emotional reform, namely the end of the obligation for municipalities to maintain church buildings and the end of the church factories, which were replaced by a fund for the management of church buildings and other property belonging to the Catholic faith. On the road to drafting the two ad hoc texts voted in 2016 and 2018, the Minister found the CSV deputies fiercely opposed to the reform and the Syndicate of Church Fabrics.

This native of Esch-sur-Alzette, a tenor of the LSAP, will therefore become a member of parliament again and will remain one of the figures of the party. He will undoubtedly be one of the important pawns in the next legislative election campaign.

He will be a mentor for some of the party's youngest members, including his daughter Lisa, who is herself involved in the LSAP as co-president of the youth organisation.

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.