Next April, Romain Schneider (LSAP) will celebrate his 60th birthday. That is the average retirement age in Luxembourg. This is also the age at which the Socialist tenor has chosen to bow out of politics As a good minister of social security that he has been since 2013, he will benefit from an early retirement after having contributed 41 years.

This is a logical step for the man who had already announced before the last legislative elections that he would not run for a new mandate in 2023. What's more, "my health has not improved", as he himself explained when commenting on his departure.

A childhood dream

He will thus put an end to a 27-year political career, which began in 1994 in the opposition as a local councillor in his stronghold of Wiltz. According to him, this was a formative experience for the man who was then a civil servant with the Employment Administration (Adem). A formative experience, as was the period from 2000 to 2009 that he spent as mayor of his town.

It must be said that this was sort of a childhood dream that became true for the man who was born into a modest family. "My father worked at the Simon Brewery in Wiltz. His salary was not very high, even if it was enough to live on and to study. This situation probably made me think early on about going into politics. In my memory, at the age of 12 or 13, I was already reading the communal bulletin and the minutes of the councils,” he smiles, his eyes slightly misty.

A "nice guy, close to people”

Those who know him know that he is not a "fake". In fact, the remark that comes up most often when Schneider is mentioned to those who know him well is that he is in politics as well as in his private life "this nice guy, really close to people". "He has never had to force himself. He's really like that and hasn't changed with responsibility and recognition," says a close friend.

It is thus easier to understand why he had said he was affected by certain attacks and comments following the reform of the dependency insurance that he had led in 2016 and 2017. A complicated moment, perhaps the most complicated of the last 12 years spent in government.

At Agriculture after 30 years of CSV

This adventure began after the 2009 legislative elections. Head of the LSAP list in the largest of the constituencies, that of the North, the then Secretary General of the party, and MP since 2004, had managed to exceed 10,000 votes. He succeeded in strengthening the Socialist presence in this constituency. Inheriting, in the wake of the CSV-LSAP Juncker-Asselborn II coalition government, a triple hat: Minister of Agriculture, Viticulture and Rural Development, Minister of Sports and Minister Delegate for the Solidarity Economy.

Along with Social Security (which he has held since 2013), agriculture and sports will remain the subjects with which he will be associated. The former being an essential area in a rural region such as the constituency of the North, of which he is the elected representative. But above all, it was quite a challenge for the Wiltz-native, who in 2009 was the first non-CSV minister to obtain this ministry in almost 30 years. And the least we can say is that this had caused some gnashing of teeth in the ranks of farmers, many of whom considered themselves somewhat 'betrayed' by Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker. The latter even felt obliged to declare that the CSV 'remained the party of agriculture'.

Schneider, for his part, remained in office for four years, pushing in particular for the promotion of organic farming, before handing over the reins, without really having asked for it. He then returned to office after the 2018 elections, making his presence felt during the African swine fever crisis that hit Belgian Luxembourg.

A love of sports

But if there is one ministry that has really stuck to the skin of the northerner, it is that of sports. If he likes it, it is not only because it allows him to regularly distribute a lot of subsidies throughout the country. He himself has often defined himself as "coming from the seraglio". He recalls that he was a footballer with FC Wiltz 71, a big name in Luxembourg football. A club of which he was also president and of which it is said that he almost never misses a home game.

He will surely also remember for a long time that day in May 2012 when, at the Mondorf Casino, he was accompanied by Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France, and former champion Bernard Hinault to celebrate cyclist Andy Schleck. And to award him the final yellow jersey of a 2010 Tour de France where he had finished second, in Paris, two years earlier. He was beaten by the Spaniard Alberto Contador, who was later convicted of doping.

And if it is said that Schneider left the Ministry of Sport to his LSAP colleague in 2018, it will be remembered that it was under his mandate that the decisive effort was made to build the Luxembourg Stadium. A monument to history.

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