Denis Coderre says he will run again for mayor of Montreal

It was an announcement that surprised nobody: after weeks of buildup, former Montreal mayor Denis Coderre officially declared his intention Sunday nightto run formayor in nextfall's municipal election.

Coderre appeared on on Radio-Canada's Tout le monde en parle, saying that a long period of introspectionfollowing his defeat by the current mayor, Valrie Plante, had restored him and prepared him to lead the city once again.

"I'm not running against Valrie Plante," Coderre said. "I'm running for Montreal."

Coderre's announcement was not a surprise to anyone even vaguely aware of Montreal politics, with hints mounting over previous weeks perhaps most clearly in the form of his new book, Retrouver Montral,which presents a vision for the city's future.

Plante, who called the ongoing speculation about Coderre's intentions a "striptease" in a Radio-Canada interview earlier this month, welcomed him to the race in a tweet on Sunday evening.

"You can't say we didn't expect it," she wrote.

Coderre said that Montreal had lately lost its lustre. "We don't get the feeling that this is a metropolis," he said.

He said he had evolved from the man sometimes accused of being a micromanager and would be a "member of the team" this time around.

"I know I had a very bad final year," Coderre said, referring to his term as mayor. "But with my team we're in a position to give this city a renaissance. What is most important is that this isn't the story of one man. We will do this as a team."

On the housing crisis,Coderre said that higher density housing "I'm not talking about skyscrapers" would help bring life back to some areas. He said the relationship between the city and the police service needed to be reinvented, and diverse voices needed to be present in decisions and discussions aboutculture, education and power.

Coderre was mayor from 2013 to 2017.Plante defeated Coderre in Nov. 2017, becoming the first woman to serve as Montreal's mayor.

Projet Montral won the majority of the 65 seats on city council, with 34 of its candidates elected, compared to 25 for quipe Denis Coderre.

Coderre announced he would quitmunicipal politics in his concession speech, and the party named for him renamed itself Ensemble Montral in early 2018.

Coderre will run with the Ensemble Montralparty. In a statement released Sunday evening, the party's interim leader, Coun. Lionel Perez, said he was "very happy" to have Coderre rejoin, and that he would convene a special caucus "very quickly."