Corinne Cahen, president of the DP, denies she put pressure on Ruppert to deny there had been disagreements between them on her management style. Mike Zenari/archives

Corinne Cahen, president of the DP, denies she put pressure on Ruppert to deny there had been disagreements between them on her management style. Mike Zenari/archives

Ruppert revealed to Le Quotidien on Saturday 25 November that Corinne Cahen, the president of the liberal party, had put him under “unacceptable pressure” to deny reports by the Wort that her management style had led him to resign.

Ruppert had officially resigned for personal reasons, as his wife is expecting their second child.

An editorial on 16 November alleged that the democratic party suffered from a “democratic deficit”. Marc Ruppert told Le Quotidien:

“Even though the previous day, and the day of the publication, Corinne Cahen declared publicly that she would be delighted to keep counting on me as a member of the party, the atmosphere quickly cooled down. She put pressure on me to deny firmly and publicly the allegations by the Wort. This was an unacceptable move, especially because it was a commentary and its allegations cannot be completely denied. That is why I decided not to follow this recommendation.”

He insists that he was not pushed out, and his main reason for resigning was to spend more time with his growing family: “The differences in opinion between me and the president on reinforcing democracy by involving the party base only played a secondary role.”

Cahen denies

Corinne Cahen said she had texted Ruppert after the publication, asking whether he felt there had been a clash between the two, as Le Quotidien had suggested. In an interview with 100,7 on Saturday 25 November, she said that he had answered “no”, and she told him to make that publicly clear. “If this is pressure, then we have different interpretations”, the DP president and minister for family and integration explained. It was not her style to exert pressure on people.

She also accused him of having wanted to be included on the party list for the 2018 parliamentary elections, and that she could not give him that assurance because it would have to go through the party committees. She added that it must have been disappointing for him to not win a seat on the local council in Luxembourg City in the last communal elections.

Marc Ruppert told RTL on Monday 27 November that he had never asked to be included on the party list in the 2018 elections, because he knew the nomination rules.